It looks like companies may talk the talk of customer service, but not that many walk the walk. That’s the finding of a recent study by the CMO Council. As reported by Internet Retailer, the study’s results show that, “Despite overwhelming agreement on the importance of the customer experience and subsequent word-of-mouth, senior marketers admit their companies are failing to take decisive, companywide action to integrate feedback from customers and their experiences into key business and marketing processes.” Tsk, tsk.

The study, “Giving Customer Voice More Volume,” conducted along with Satmetrix, reveals that 38% of the execs surveyed say their companies have no programs in place to track or propagate positive word-of-mouth among customers. Plus, only 29% rate highly their ability to handle and resolve customer problems or complaints. Wow.

So, what’s a good company to do? Here are a few ways to show you care:

• Put a formal program into place to monitor and measure the “voice of the customer.”
• Develop an efficient system to collect, analyze and distribute customer feedback. In real time, if you can manage it.
• Track your word-of-mouth on the Internet. Do it!

“Companies must become more sophisticated and committed to both leveraging customer experience as a key business metric and instituting companywide processes that drive improvement,” concludes Laura Brooks, VP of research at Satmetrix.

The Po!nt: Take better care of your customers. Remember: if they aren’t talking with you, they may well be talking about you—across the Internet.

Source: Internet Retailer. Read the full article here.

When I got the invitation to participate in the Blog Pavilion at the recent Business Leader Northwest conference, I was both excited – it was my first event as a blogger – and wary, as the Pavilion’s theme conflicted with the event’s focus. My experience confirmed the inkling: the Pavilion felt like an island. Visitor count revealed that only about a quarter of conference attendees stopped by the pavilion, and I know many of those were actually other exhibitors.

At the same time that social media, of which blogs are an integral part, are reported to have tipped, many business owners and managers remain on the sidelines. Why is that? Every product or technology has late adopters, and social media is no exception. There is nothing wrong with that.

Here are three big reasons blogs and other social media tools continue to confound many in the business world:

Communication of benefits. As with any product, if the prospect doesn’t understand its benefits and utility, there’s no sale. Social media evangelists may talk about conversations and community – two major social media benefits – all they want. Tipping the scale will require sharing examples of success stories and enough suspension of disbelief for the late adopters to give social media a try.

Generational conflict. I don’t mean age – I know bloggers and twitterers older than my retired parents. I mean the conflict between old “push” marketing and new “pull” marketing. Push marketing has us, marketers, broadcasting messages to them, customers. Pull marketing creates content that customers want and discover. We’re still learning to not interrupt what interests people and instead being what interests them.

Speed of developments. As soon as a tool or website or technology tips, it seems another hot thing replaces it. Witness Facebook scrambling to emulate Twitter these days. It’s hard to keep up and manage the sheer volume of information coming through the social media channels. And when overloaded with choices, we often decide against making a choice. All it will take is the use of tools that help make sense of the deluge.

None of this means social media is going away. A recent Nielsen report revealed that people now spend more time on social networking sites and blogs than using email, and that social media activity is the fastest growing segment of the internet.

What the late adopters need to do not to miss out on the opportunities social media offers is someone to show the way and a mind open enough to learn by doing.

Will you be the next blogger?

Image credit: Teemus

Peter Korchnak is the principal of Semiosis Communications, a sustainable marketing consultancy based in Portland, Oregon. As the writer of the Sustainable Marketing Blog, he champions branding through customer experiences and community building as a marketing strategy. He’s one of the 100 co-authors of ”Connect! Marketing in the social media era” out on Blurb.com on April 6, 2009.

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/peterkorchnak
Twitter: http://twitter.com/peterkorchnak
Delicious: http://delicious.com/peterkorchnak

“Digital marketing has become the way to communicate in the 21st century,” says Elaine Fogel in a premium article at MarketingProfs. “Social media, email, search engine marketing, interactive marketing, blogs, wikis, and knols—the list goes on … to include mobile marketing, podcasting, videos.”

But in your rush to marketing’s online future, you shouldn’t abandon its offline past. Print collateral, argues Fogel, remains relevant.

• Despite the seeming ubiquity of Internet access and usage, many people simply don’t go online. She cites a Parks Associates study that found 21 percent of Americans had never visited a Web site, sent an email or used a search engine. Even in highly developed European countries like France, Belgium and Austria, more than 40 percent of the population never uses the Internet; despite high rates of connectivity in countries like Japan and Taiwan, this number jumps—on average—to a whopping 85 percent in Asia.
• Some segments prefer print marketing. Hispanic interest in direct mail has spiked in recent years, according to a Vertis survey, and while 85 percent of women between the ages of 25 and 44 read direct mail pieces, only 53 percent read email marketing messages. “From this,” notes Fogel, “we can conclude that if you target women age 25-44 or Hispanics, print collateral may get your marketing messages through over digital options.”

The Po!nt: Don’t neglect traditional marketing collateral. Says Elaine Fogel, “Even though digital marketing is growing with a vengeance, print collateral can still hold its place in an integrated marketing communications mix, at least for now.”

Source: MarketingProfs. Click here for the complete article.

-author unknown, published by MarketingProfs Vol. 3, No. 19 Feb 26, 2009

With so many workers being laid off, the job market is saturated.  Finding a new job is difficult at best, impossible for most.  Turning to the state for unemployment insurance is even a challenge (as reported by Mike Rogoway with the Oregonian).

Despite all the bad news, the true spirit of America is best seen at your local chamber of commerce.  People who are turning their own skills into marketable services are starting their own business and flocking to chamber meetings.  Over the past several weeks, I have witnessed a big increase in meeting attendance.

What sort of businesses should you consider starting?

Professional services are always in high demand.  During recessions, customer loyalty is traded for price.  If you have the skills and can offer them at an affordable rate, then your job may just be a phone call away.

Business consulting, marketing and web development are all important services right now.  As employers are forced to cut labor, the workload for those still employeed skyrockets.  Consulting startup costs are among the lowest in the industry.  Registration fees, business cards, a website and some time at the library to build a contact database and you’ll be well on your way to self-employment.

Personal service companies also have an allure.  Errand Services, Child Care, House-sitting, Pet Care, and Shopping Services have a market in times when parents are too busy.  Recessions tax time and energies of every worker still employed.  Marketing yourself as a time saving resource can be very profitable.

Get out there are trust yourself.

Ed Bejarana
BusinessBlogging.net
A division of Zenith Exhibit, Inc.

“Blogs, wikis, podcasts, vodcasts, social networks, mobile[s] … webinars, e-newsletters, print magazines, trade shows, RSS feeds, industry websites …” These are just some of the channels now available for meeting and greeting B2B prospects and customers, reports Stacy Whisel in a post at the B2B Insights Blog. So, with the enormous array of social options out there, how can marketers determine which channels might actually deliver contacts for their business? “In the B2B market, [that answer] varies widely and can change often,” Whisel advises. Oh, swell.

But hold on: she then offers eight interesting tips for “getting a good handle on where your audience lives online.” Among them:

• Utilize sites like Technorati or BlogPulse to search your company name and keywords to find out if you’re being blogged.
• Get Google news alerts for your company name and keywords.
• Ask your own technical staff where they go to follow the industry and get information.
• Identify your industry’s gurus and opinion leaders; conduct a Google search to determine if they are blogging. If they are, sign up for their RSS feeds.
• Identify your industry’s lead-generation sites, and evaluate the presence of your competitors.

Finally, there’s the old standby: Survey your customers and prospects, and just ask them.

The Po!nt: Know your place(s). The digital universe is vast and growing; a good way to find customers in it is to identify a few core channels, and work out from there.

Source: B2B Insights Blog. Read the full post here.

-author unknown, Published by MarketingProfs, Vol. 2, No. 8 Feb 26, 2009

When David Greiner decided to redesign the Campaign Monitor newsletter—rather than give it a simple facelift—he first studied the advice his company gave to customers. “Turns out we were breaking a number of the recommendations we’d been advocating for so long,” he notes, “and it was time to remedy that.” In a post at the Campaign Monitor blog, Greiner offers an in-depth discussion of his four redesign must-haves. Here’s a snapshot:

The newsletter had to be readable, even with blocked images. Though the previous design already addressed this issue, Greiner took it a step further. “I moved away from the large image-based header graphic at the top of the email and kept every important bit of information as text,” he explains. With the new design—shown in a screen shot at the blog post—a recipient won’t see the image placeholder, and might not even realize that anything has been blocked.

It had to be optimized for preview panes. Again, nothing groundbreaking here, but Greiner also put a spin on this concept by dispensing with a preheader altogether and diving right into a Table of Contents. “My testing showed this key content was now visible in the preview pane of every popular email client I tested,” he says, “even at a very low resolution.”

In its inaugural week, the redesigned newsletter’s click rate improved on the old design’s average by a cool eight percent.

The Po!nt: Designer, heal thyself! Are you breaking any of your own newsletter design rules? If so, maybe it’s time for a makeover.

Source: Campaign Monitor. Read the full post here.

-author unknown, Published by MarketingProfs Vol. 2, No.2 Feb 27, 2009

If you’re looking for good business advice, says Drew McLellan, don’t look in the mirror. “I know what you’re thinking,” he says. “You are the one in a million business owner who can in fact, be objective. Don’t fool yourself. That’s like asking someone who’s had 10 shots if they’re okay to drive.”

For a balanced view, you need to find objective input that isn’t influenced by your passion and ambition. McLellan recommends options like these:

• Create an advisory board that meets regularly to review the state of your business; this way, important advisors like your attorney and accountant can offer their perspective on a regular basis.
• Invite good customers to start an advisory board of their own.
• Join a mastermind group where you can brainstorm and vet ideas in a supportive environment.
• Get involved with professional organizations, especially those boasting an international membership. “You can learn best practices from each other,” he says, “and not worry about competing.”

The Po!nt: “No one is less objective about your business than you are,” says McLellan. “No one has more of an emotional investment that you do. No one has more on the line than you.” This lack of objectivity can lead to hazardous decision-making—so be sure to get an outside perspective.

Source: Drew’s Marketing Minute. Click here for the full post.

According to Jorge Aguilar and Andrew Pierce, the Hispanic population in the United States will surpass that of their white non-Hispanic compatriots by 2030. And, argue the pair in an article at MarketingProfs, appealing to this rapidly growing segment is not as simple as hiring a Spanish translator.

“[M]arketers need to incorporate into their perspectives how purchasing decisions are made by Hispanics,” they say. The opinions of family and friends, for instance, weigh heavily in the choices Hispanics make. For this reason, a realtor profiled on HGTV arranged for prospective home buyers to spend an evening entertaining loved ones in a house they were considering. “The family decided to purchase the house after getting positive feedback from the guests,” say Aguilar and Pierce.

They also suggest wooing first-generation customers with brand names they recognize. Colgate-Palmolive imports Suavitel, a fabric softener popular in Latin America; and Blistex has created a lip balm flavored like the ubiquitous soda Jarritos. Once you’ve penetrated the market, meanwhile, they recommend targeting your Hispanic audience with highly tailored messaging. “This likely requires new positioning to differentiate the brand from competitors while earning credibility and relevance,” they note.

The Po!nt: One-size-fits-all solutions won’t work for this important segment, claim Aguilar and Pierce. “As the Hispanic population continues to grow larger and more affluent,” they say, “winning marketers will be those who understand brand loyalty cannot be achieved by translating advertisements into Spanish.”

Source: MarketingProfs. Click here for the complete article.

Those of you who know me know I rarely do this…  Here is a video on the progression of information technology, researched by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Bronman, remixed

By the way, I did not create this video! Search on the names above if you want more info – they are responsible.

It’s hard to believe, but only fifteen years ago almost no one used email in the course of a business day. Today, meanwhile, we can’t imagine life without a mobile device that gives us instant access to multiple email accounts, wherever we might be.

Now it’s time for a new technology that may have a similar impact on the way we conduct our professional lives. In a video at Harvard Business Online, Rita McGrath discusses total-recall systems with the potential to create a complete digitized record of your workday. “So imagine,” she says, “[that] you’re in a meeting, and every single thing you say—every joke, every contribution to brainstorming—can be captured and replayed in all its glory at some time in the future by people who weren’t even there.”

According to McGrath, we will “play” meetings just as we play DVDs—skipping the dull sections and zeroing in superior content. Total-recall systems can also help you determine what went right, or wrong, as you review a project. “You can construct an accurate, undisputed, transparent record of everybody … involved in making the decision.”

You might find the total-recall concept unsettling, perhaps worrying about Orwellian intrusion or your affection for four-letter words. And, acknowledges McGrath, like any tool it can be used for good or ill.

Whatever your opinion, however, total recall is on the way—and your Marketing Inspiration is to implement systems and policies that make the most of its technology without hampering the open discussions that lead to great ideas.

More Inspiration:

David Reich: The Next Bailout?
Ted Mininni: CMOs Don’t Get Customer Service??? Yikes!
Cam Beck: How to Avoid the Perils of Blended Networks