>Spot On! This Week’s Best Marketing Advice.

Written on August 30, 2008 by Jay Ehret in Advertising, branding, conversation, Customer Experience, promotion, word of mouth

Here are some of the week’s best small business marketing blog posts. They are categorized by the four spots of The Marketing Circle of Life. Enjoy and be educated.

Photo Credit: jeffk

Conversation: Viral Campaigning or Viral Complaining? by Becky Carroll on Customers Rock!. It can be easy to get customer service wrong, with the results sometimes splattered all over town and the Internet. Which type of customers your company will have depends on several factors. Here are some top tips for building “viral campaigners” and what to do when viral complaining happens

Promotion: Don’t Give Thanks by Jim Morris on Advertising for Peanuts. How often have we seen commercials showing real customers, or pretend real customers, coming right out and thanking the advertiser? So what, exactly, is wrong with an advertiser doing ads consisting of customers thanking them? It is as transparently shameless as advertising gets.

Experience: Poll Your Employees on Service Untitled. Employee satisfaction is just as important as customer satisfaction. You want to take employee feedback seriously and actually keep their opinions in mind.

Branding: Don’t Let Culture Vultures Get You or Your Brand Down by Kaira Sturdivant Rouda on eBrand Marketing. At some point or another, your brand will encounter human roadblocks called culture vultures. The fact is, these people touch your brand and your customers. If you’re not together internally, it will affect your image externally.

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>Spot On! This Week’s Best Marketing Advice

Written on August 23, 2008 by Jay Ehret in Advertising, branding, conversation, Customer Experience, marketing plan, promotion, word of mouth

Here are some of the week’s best small business marketing blog posts. They are categorized by the four spots of The Marketing Circle of Life. Enjoy and be educated.

Photo Credit: Chris Gin

Branding: Once Upon a Time…There Were Five Kinds of Stories To Build Your Brand by Charlene Jaszewski on the aimClear Blog. You may have a brand, but do you have a story? Businesses today are being shaped by stories being told. There are five types of stories that can be told and you need to find your story.

Experience: Taste lab restaurant lets customers add flavour spotted by Susanna Haynie on Springwise. German restaurant Geschmackslabor (Flavor Lab ), lets customers experiment with the flavor of their meals. Diners may add custom-made seasoning oils when their meal arrives. This DIY approach adds a new level of experience.

Promotion: The Psychology of a Good Letter by Reginald Adkins on ElementalTruths. Reginald reviews some of the tenets of good letter writing. The list also happens to be a guideline for writing good advertising copy.

Conversation: ‘Pimped-Out’ Microsite Triggers Viral Explosion: Accounts Double; Sales Leap a case study on MarketingSherpa. Sometimes a local marketing campaign is so good it won’t stay put. The media grabs it and awareness spreads virally. A single press release for a forklift company eventually garnered press coverage and viral buzz from as far away as Dubai.

The complete series can be found here: Build Your Marketing Plan

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>Spot On! This week’s best marketing advice.

Written on August 16, 2008 by Jay Ehret in Advertising, branding, conversation, Customer Experience, marketing, promotion, word of mouth

Formerly known as Weekend Marketing Reading, here are some of the week’s best small business marketing blog posts. They are categorized by the four spots of The Marketing Circle of Life. Enjoy and be educated.

Smack-in-the-middle-Flickr-photo-by-ogimogi

Photo Credit: ogimogi

Promotion: Good direct mail design: let form follow function by Dean Rieck on the Direct Creative Blog. Good direct mail design is like good design in other fields. Form should follow function. Ask some basic questions and know a few key design elements.

Branding: Obessive Branding – Your Thoughts? by Robyn McMaster on Brain Based Biz. Brands offer us reliable mental shortcuts. When consistent, they provide us with clarity and simplicity. But when a company jumps the branding track, it defeats the purpose of a brand.

Experience: Experience Design Is the Active Pursuit of Customer-Inspired Products/Services, Not Just Company Defined Products/Services by Idris Mootee on the Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog. Experience Design is often used by advertising and people as design of touch points. In fact, an experience model is where what we want to communicate meets what we (brand) truly believe. The goal is to make customer-inspired products/services, not customer-defined products/services.

Conversation: Even Hair Shampoo Goes Guerrilla by Lindsay Polson on stuff4business. No shower scenes or strategically placed lather here. See how this promotional gimmick and free samples encourage product trial.

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>Spot On! This Week’s Best Marketing Advice

Written on August 9, 2008 by Jay Ehret in Advertising, branding, conversation, Customer Experience, promotion, small business, Von Dutch

Photo credit: Flickr photo by dbking

Experience: Color and the Retail Experience by C.B Whittemore at Flooring the Consumer. Color makes a difference in attitude, in conversation, in retail experience. Consumer buying decisions are very personal. Yet, too often the experience we offer our consumer in our stores has nothing to do with that expression of self.

Branding: Brand Strategy: Build an Icon, Not a Fad by Mark Ritson at Branding Strategy Insider. There’s a difference between sales and marketing. It’s the difference between your brand becoming a passing fad or an enduring icon. Mark tells the story of the rise of Von Dutch, and then it’s quick flame out. It’s an example of my previous post on brand value.

Promotion: Jet Blue’s Happy B.S. by Paul Isakson. Note: make sure your “brand campaign” is in alignment with the product you deliver. Otherwise you may incur an unflattering analysis on the Paul Isakson blog.

Conversation: Interview with Adam and Wendy Leidhecker, Paw Luxury by Toby Bloomberg on the Diva Marketing blog. How can small businesses use social media as a credible business strategy? Advice and direction on embracing online social media.

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