Archive for the ‘Marketing Communications’ Category
Hey Marketers! What’s Your Customer Service IQ?
One of my biggest pet peeves as a marketer (and PR practitioner, too!) is not having access to customers.
Fortunately, I have worked for many companies that have trusted me and allowed access.
Of course, I have also received my fair share of Heismans from sales and management. Heck, by their blocking you would have thought I was requesting their first born for a ritual sacrifice or worse… their yearly bonus.
Today, in our social world there is absolutely no reason to refuse marketers access to customers. Unless, of course, said marketers are raving lunatics running around high on tactical crack because their sales team is demanding leads. Then yeah, they shouldn’t be allowed to chat it up with customers.
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The Marketing & PR Conundrum: Lying to Customers
In a recent BNET post “Lying to Your Customers? Come on, Everyone’s Doing It,” author and customer advocate Christopher Elliott shares six companies who have lied to their customers: Tavern on the Green, Ford, Microsoft, Office Depot, Cablevision, and Apple.
Lies or Business As Usual?
The chef at Tavern on the Green lied about gluten free pasta. What is the big deal, right? If a diner has food allergies, it is a huge deal. While Chef Damian Cardone may not have thought too much about the “white lie,” those with gluten allergies likely suffered the consequences of their meal. Tavern on the Green’s reputation is known far and wide—making it an iconic brand. Now, it’s doors are closed after filing for bankruptcy.
Keep Reading…
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Tags: Apple, Brand Reputation, Branding, Cablevision, Ford, Marketing, Marketing Management, Office Depot, Public Relations, social business, Tavern on the Green | 
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For Hire! Searching for My Next Career Opportunity
You may have heard around the social media water cooler that I am looking for a job. It’s true!
The economy is in the tank and jobs are limited—especially marketing, PR and communications jobs. Thankfully, I have been able to tap into a network of friends and colleagues that have been supportive, generous, and helpful.
People have been asking me “What are you looking for?”
One can hardly provide a smart response in 140-characters, no matter how many years they have been on Twitter.
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Marketing Dollars & Sense: Calculating Return on Investment
In my recent post, “The Return on Investment (ROI) Craze Won’t Last,” I stated that the demand for ROI would not last because most organizations, agencies and marketers will struggle to gather all three necessary points of data: Net Profit, Sales and Investment. Without this information, marketers cannot provide ROI—it is that simple.
To be clear, I did not say that I was not a proponent of delivering ROI for social media or any marketing expenditures. Providing ROI is very important, especially if marketers want to prove their worth to an organization.
If you agree, this post is for you.
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Rethinking the Marketing Mix from the Customer’s Perspective
Dumping the marketing mix is tough. It’s like replacing well-worn shoes or pair of jeans. When something is comfortable, it makes it even more difficult to toss it aside for something new that could take years to break in to the point of comfort.
However, we are at a point where we need discomfort because comfortable is not working.
We are all familiar with the marketing mix: Product, Place (i.e. Distribution), Price and Promotion. It is drilled into our heads in college and it is reinforced with corporate structure. The problem with the marketing mix is that it does not consider the customer, it only considers the product. Perhaps with the advancement of technology, we should have better predicted that a 58-year old concept might require rethinking.
Thought leaders like Bob Lauterborn, Philip Kotler and Koichi Shimizu have argued for years (since the mid-90s) for a customer-centric model known as the Four C’s: Customer, Convenience, Cost and Communications.
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The Harte of Marketing by Beth Harte is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.theharteofmarketing.com. [If you have a question about what you can use from this blog, click on the above Creative Commons link to learn more.]
