Archive for October, 2010

This weekend I was reading an article in the Fall Harvard Business Review OnPoint magazine (How to Get Your Message Across edition) called “Five Ways to Sharpen Your Communication Skills” by John Baldoni. The article was interesting, but what was more interesting was the comment they selected to share in the Reader Comment section after the article.

John shares these five tips:

1. Know the fundamentals (Understand the written and spoken word.)
2. Think clearly about what you will say (Don’t use PowerPoint as short-hand for thinking)
3. Prepare for meetings (Take the time to think about what to say before you say it.)
4. Engage in discussion (Debate. Hear all viewpoints. Don’t engage in group think.)
5. Listen to others (Discussion is meaningless if no one is listening. “Measure what you treasure.”)

Sounds like everything we learned in kindergarten, right? Still many marketing, public relations and communications pros struggle with these basic elements when it comes to communicating with customers, stakeholders and other employees.

Keep Reading…

Even More Goodness! Related Posts:

• For Hire! Searching for My Next Career Opportunity
• Outputs, Outtakes, Outcomes…Oh, my!
• Gratitude
• Saturday Morning Reads: Celebrating Mom-Centric Marketing

This is a marketing blog, so why am I reading and sharing customer service articles? Well, because as with all things time and learning leads to change.

And one major change that needs to happen is for us marketing, public relations and communications professionals to pause for a moment to learn from our friends in customer service.

Our customers don’t silo their experiences with us; they never have and never will. Any outreach or interation is from the brand, not from the silo. From that perspective isn’t there value in understanding how servicing the customer at any point of communication or interaction provides an experience that benefits the organization overall all?

As we know, great customer service never goes out of style and below are insights into how companies like Southwest Air, Best Buy and Publix have made a business decision to put the customer in the center of their organization in order to service them better.

1. Retail’s Big Blog: Southwest co-founder shares how to show employees the LUV

“We don’t have any secrets; we are an open book. But every time these companies came in they would want to know ‘what are your programs?’ And I would say over and over—and you could see the shades go down because people didn’t buy it—we don’t have ‘programs’ it’s a way of life. It is who we are. We spend an incredible amount of time hiring the right people who want to do the right thing. But we don’t have programs for handling things.”

Keep Reading, There’s More Goodness!

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• In Search of Integrated Marketing Genius
• Your “Industry Experience Only” Requirement Is Hurting Customers, Employees and Shareholders
• Saturday Morning Reads: What’s the Return on Investment (ROI) of Content Marketing?
• What Integrated Marketing Is Not (Hint: It’s Not Integrated Tactics)

They often say that conversation is an art. The act of being charitable and asking for nothing in return is also an art.

Today, I am proud to join my Age of Conversation 3: It’s Time To Get Busy! co-authors in asking for your support to give the gift of conversation. And by doing so you’ll also be giving the gift of clean water to hundreds of thousands of people who need it so desperately.

Each time you buy a copy of AOC 3, 100% of the cost of the book will be donated to our selected charity, charity: water.

charity: water is a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. 100% of public donations directly fund water projects!

Keep Reading, There’s More Goodness!

Even More Goodness! Related Posts:

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• The Ruination of E-Mail Marketing
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• Here a ping, there a ping…

As most marketers know by now, this week was a rough one for The Gap as their rebranding efforts were met with a lot of negativity by customers, fans, and marketers alike. The Gap does not stand alone in suffering the lash back of the social web. They now join the ranks of major brands such as Motrin, Tropicana, and Walmart in learning too late that customers and pundits are paying attention and are sharing their viewpoints.

When I say ‘what were they thinking’ I mean that I would truly like to get inside the heads of the marketing decisions makers to understand their thought processes. Or, better yet, to be a fly on the wall to see the social dynamics of the meetings that take place and steer decisions that are made.

Every day my natural marketing curiosity makes me wonder why marketers are not insightful enough to foresee the results of their actions often to the point of detriment where they are in a position of surprise or defense.  The opposite also intrigues me. I am always impressed with marketers that have well thought-out plans that are executed flawlessly and with confidence. Undoubtedly, I think we can and should learn from both.

1. Harvard Business Review: The Gap Logo Debacle: A Half-Brained Mistake

“And now, recognizing the error of its ways, the Gap has decided to get radically open: to let anyone compete to design their logo, via (you guessed it) markets, networks, and communities — which is the way that 90% of design, business, and downright everything should be done in the first place”

Keep Reading, There’s More Goodness!

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[Originally posted on Serengeti's Endless Plain blog on 9/16/10. I have edited some of the contents for this post.]

A post by Dawn Westerberg, “Social Media, Customer-Centric, and #IMCchat,” prompted a long response from me, so I thought I’d share my thoughts here too.

If you read THoM, you might already know that every Wednesday night I co-moderate a chat on Twitter called #IMCchat (that’s the Twitter hashtag, if you want to search Twitter), which stands for integrated marketing communications chat. If you are new to Twitter or if you haven’t been on a Twitter chat yet, I highly recommend checking them out (here’s a list of Twitter chats that Meryl Evans keeps up-to-date). Chats are a wonderful way to ask questions or engage in conversation around a topic that is of interest. It’s also great to learn, get advice and share information.

On the September 15th  #IMCchat we discussed customer-centric organizations, what defines an organization that is customer-centric and examples (Best Buy, FedEx, Fiskars).

Keep Reading, There’s More Goodness!

Even More Goodness! Related Posts:

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• Customer-Centric: An Operational Practice, Not a Marketing Buzzword
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• What Integrated Marketing Is Not (Hint: It’s Not Integrated Tactics)