BeConnected

Word of Mouth Marketing

One of the best things you can do with a blog or email newsletter is equip people with talking points and compelling stories to repeat when talking to their colleagues about you, your company, product, service etc.

Marketing circles are a buzz about word of mouth marketing these days. (oh, the irony) The recent piece in BtoB Magazine carries a definition of three types of word of mouth marketing.

The first, influencer relations, involves educating important constituents-media, analysts and, increasingly, bloggers and other emerging online influencers-about your company and its products. The second, viral marketing, is the concept of seeding your market with a great, often quirky, idea that gathers a life of its own and spreads through audience interaction. A potential third category, [Keith] Bates said, is evangelism by company experts and, even better, highly knowledgeable (read, highly credible) customers.

Blogs and email newsletters are a great way to do all three.

[BtoB Magazine on Word of Mouth Marketing] via

tags: BtoB Magazine | WOMM | word of mouth | marketing | Keith Bates
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Our Leader Speaks: Learn Emarketing Best Practices

If you are in Chicago this Thursday you'll want to check out the eMarketing Excellence Summit, June 30, 2005 at The Westin Chicago River North Chicago. The Summit is sponsored by on-demand email software provider ExactTarget, along with the Customer Relationship Management Association (CRMA), Chicago Interactive Marketing Association (CIMA) and the Chicago chapter of the Business Marketing Association (BMA). Todd Smart president of BeTuitive Marketing LLC will be a featured speaker. Not only does Todd have a lot to say about permission marketing he brings the same perspective and experience of a serial entrepreneur that keeps him busy training and mentoring entrepreneurs throughout the US, Europe and Asia.

For more information visit eMarketing Excellence Summit

tags: emarketing | ExactTarget | Todd Smart | BeTuitve
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Wall Street Journal Tells Us Why We Need a Corporate Blog

I talk a lot about monitoring the value of listening to the conversation about your brand, product, service or company and I point to a lot of tools for doing just that. Here now the Wall Street Journal agrees that blogs and other forms of consumer created media (i.e. forums and chat rooms) provide very useful customer intuition that can help shape product offerings.

Marketers say bloggers' unsolicited opinions and offhand comments are a source of invaluable insights that are hard to get elsewhere. "We look at the blogosphere as a focus group with 15 million people going on 24/7 that you can tap into without going behind a one-way mirror," says Rick Murray, executive vice president of Edelman, a Chicago public-relations firm.

The article also points out why it is so important for companies to both monitor and participate in the discussions about themselves online.

Mr. Blackshaw says companies used to dismiss vocal complaints from one or two consumers as an aberration. But now, they have to pay attention because now those complainers may have blogs. "Those folks have influence with others via the Internet," he says. PR firms are hiring Intelliseek to monitor their clients, he adds, because once-obscure consumer issues are surfacing at awkward moments, such as CEO interviews with "reporters who go to Google and type in a brand and [then] ask tough questions."

If you're thinking about starting a corporate blog consider outsourcing it to provide excellent professional content, management experience and insight that will shorten your learning curve. It's easy to start the exploration. Visit the BeTuitive pricing page to get started.

Not ready to jump in? Keep track of the latest developments with e-newsletters and blogs by subscribing to the BeTuitive newsletter.

[WSJ.com on Blogs and Brand Insights]

tags: customer insights | customer focus groups | blog | monitor blogs | WSJ
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Since When is 2003 the "latest news"

Ever have that not so fresh website feeling?

I am so tired of going to websites that feature links to their "latest news" only to find that it's a link to a pdf of their fall 2003 print newsletter. I suspect it's the result of the original web designer that had the good idea to put the company newsletter online. The decision makers agree that it would be cool but they don't realize that they are crossing from static web brochure to fresh regularly updated content. They don't realize that now more than ever people expect current fresh updated content on the web. Email and blogs are teaching people that they can expect the latest information and content online.

If you are one of those with a moldy old newsletter online I'd encourage you to either update it or remove it from your site. Do it right now. Go on....I'll wait.

Of course, we here at BeTuitive would love to help you find a way to publish effective email newsletters that can provide really fresh relevant content with minimal time and effort on your part.

tags: newsletter | newsletter pdf | print newsletter | email newsletter | BeTuitive
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Revenge of The Seth

Could it be Revenge of the Seth?

Seth Godin answer's a critic and in so doing summarizes why we should all be marketing with the modern tools of permission marketing like blogs and email newsletters.

Marketing is not about trickery or even insincerity. It's about spreading ideas that you believe in, sharing ideas you're passionate about... and doing it with authenticity. Marketing is about treating prospects and customers with respect, and realizing that it's easier to grow the amount of business you do with happy people than it is to find new strangers to accost.

Smart one that Seth. Imagine if he worked for your competition.

tags: Seth Godin | permission marketing | marketing | Revenge of the Seth
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Newsletter Content: Profile a Customer Creation

Are people doing cool things with your products? Customers are out there mixing mashing and bashing products, tools and services into new and innovative products, hacks and applications. Some violate intellectual property laws, some are very narrow in their appeal and application and some enhance the cool of customers lives. Here's one that's making the rounds of the blogs today.

A lot of people are seeing into the near future where MP3 players combine with cellphones to equip users to listen to streaming music anywhere any time.

Scott Moschella didn't want to wait so he documented a way to combine some common tools and some web services to create a way to stream his own music over his mobile phone.

DittyBot is a combination of Apple Script, Mac OS X Automator(macro applet), Skype(internet telephony) and Apple iTunes.

You send a text message from your mobile phone to your POP email account. Your text message should contain the keywords of a song title (and possibly an artist name) that you want to hear. DittyBot finds that email (he checks Mail every 45 seconds) and copies the song name into a text file. The song name is then copied into iTunes and a playlist is created from your search. Next, DittyBot loads Skype (the internet telephony app) and begins calling your mobile phone. Your mobile phone rings and when you pick it up, you should hear your song start playing in all its compressed glory. DittyBot will play your selection to you over your phone until you hang up. Mind you, this all should happen within 1 minute of sending your song request (depending on the speed of your POP server). Sometimes it’s even quicker!

While this requires some serious geek-fu it demonstrates just how willing customers/users are to make a way to create the functions and features they want.

If I was working for Skype I'd be all over this one. What a way to increase the use of their service. I'd hire Scott to write an article for the Skype newsletter or blog (if they had one.)

Customer creations like these that spread good will about your product are a great reason to have a corporate blog or an email newsletter in which to profile the creator and their creation.

[DittyBug]

tags: customer creations | DittyBug | Scott Moschella | apple script | Skype
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Customer Intuition: ESPN Considers Branded TVs

The NYT reports that sports network ESPN is considering extending it's television brand into TV hardware.

"Brand value will become more important than ever, as consumers are now fragmented to such a great degree that brands must build a new relationship with them," he [Disney President Robert A. Iger] said. "Content will remain king, while technology will become its powerful prime minister."

The network is also considering the possibility of offering special content to owners of its TV's. As digital televisions begin to enter the market with standard Ethernet connections and built-in hard drive recorders (called personal video recorders, or P.V.R.'s), there will be more opportunities for content providers to offer programming to a captive audience.

"An ESPN-branded TV could arrive tuned to ESPN," Mr. Doherty said. "It would be dumb to send out a TV with a built-in P.V.R. if the P.V.R. was empty."

The decision to do a brand extension is based on customer intuition. The central question being "Do you think customers of product X would be interested in product Y?" This assumes an informed intuition regarding one's customers.

I think the failure of brand extensions is not usually the design or quality of the product itself it's the failure of customer intuition. Companies make leaps of logic hoping to lead their customers into new products and services and the fail miserably. They need to be one or two steps in front of their customers instead of five or ten steps.

In the case of ESPN the last line of the quote is intriguing. Perhaps instead of rebadged middle of the line TVs ESPN should focus on custom content packages for PVRs. That would be a better first step because the sports obsessed fans that ESPN wants to market TVs to already have the best TVs they can afford. They may or may not have a PVR(Tivo). Either way they can still download ESPN content into a PVR.

If ESPN wants to reach further into the lives of their customers they should develop deep intuition about the other interests and passions of their customers.

How are you developing deep customer intuition in your organization? Are you considering a line extension that makes a leap of logic like ESPN's content to hardware? Are you one step in front of your customers or ten steps?

[NYT on ESPN TVs]

Related:
Building Customer Intuition Category Archive
Customer Intuition Tools Category Archive

tags: ESPN | brand extension | TV | PVR
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B2B Relationship Tool: Hollywood Loves IM

Wired News reports on a new trend in Hollywood.

Freelance/Contract/Consulting people in need of work are using their IM status messages to indicate their availability for work. The messages typically indicate "Away from computer." but are editable to indicate that an individual needs/is available for work. Producers who are looking for short term production help are able to scan their "buddy list" to see who is available. Saves the time and effort of calling each contact to see who is working and who is available.

This is perhaps a killer-ap for the use of IM in the workplace. IM could be a useful tool as part of a B2B relationship. Is there a role for IM in your workflow? A mention of this Wired article and an article about IM in your business would be a good content item for your next email newsletter.

[Never IM in This Town Again]

tags: IM | Instant Messenger | B2B | relationship building | social networking
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Verbal Communication Tip

One of the best things you can do as a leader/manager is develop tips, tricks, techniques and hacks for bettering your verbal communication skills. Whether it's employees, vendor's or customers there are some creative strategies for communicating verbally. Some of these are useful and some are borderline rude. How about this technique from Jim at Tips of the Trade:

When you also want to avoid getting into an endlessly long and boring conversation with someone at work who doesn't know when to stop talking, but you must talk to them, do the following:

Open up your cellphone, and approach their cubicle. Say into the phone, "hold on one second." Then tell your talkative friend exactly what you need to tell them. They feel important because you interrupted your other conversation, but then you can motion to the phone to disengage them from any further small talk. Walk away and continue talking to your dial tone.

So what's your favorite technique? What do you think of this technique? Leave a comment.

Related:
Verbal Communication Skills

[Verbal Communication Tip at Tips of the Trade]

tags: verbal communication | communication | tips | talking
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How Do You Define A Good Customer?

My sister manages a large retail business. She is often plagued with customer service issues. Often customers volunteer that they are "good customers" and "spend a lot of money here." My sister, of course, knows the stats and she can immediately size up a particular customers total sale and compare it with what she knows is her average sale value. Often the customer feels they are spending a lot of money with her establishment and their order is but one quarter of the average sale. To the individual customer it obviously is a lot of money.

So who is right? Is a customer's perception of being a "good customer" correct or are the statistics that identify good customers based on hard numbers correct?

How do you define a good customer? Do your customers know what you think of them?

Related:
Eight Ways to be a Good Customer
More on Being a Good Customer

tags: good customers | intuition | knowing customers | customer service
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