Working on new product/service development or re-positioning an existing offering? Then you can’t afford to ignore what your customers and prospects are thinking. “It’s very easy to think you are the expert on your own product. But in many ways, that’s a myth. The true experts are your customers.” Jamie Wong That’s why you need
Your brand is conveyed in everything you do to communicate and deliver your product/service offerings; i.e., what and how people think about your brand is based on the experiences they have with your business. This story illustrates how a business manager formed her impression of a company’s brand when seeking a new payroll processing firm.
Public relations (PR) is an essential part of a nonprofit’s marketing function because it helps educate the public on the organization’s mission, increase donations, and find more volunteers. With nonprofits allocating an average of five percent or less of their budget on PR and marketing, team members have to rely on less expensive options such
Curiosity. A hunger to explore what works and what doesn’t. Respectively challenging others’ ideas. These are among the many reasons I enjoy speaking with groups of young adults preparing for leadership roles. I recall one such gathering that involved an open discussion on marketing. We talked about dealing with difficult customers (it’s OK to terminate a
In honor of National Customer Service Week (observed the first week in October), here are three amazing stories told by customers — all marketing professionals — who experienced and analyzed them. They represent different situations that share a common theme. Customer experience #1: “I walked into an Eckerd Drug Store to buy a sympathy card. Before
The phrase “What am I, chopped liver?” is uttered when a person is made to feel that he or she is not special. It’s exactly how some customers feel as a result of neglect by companies. I’m seeing this scenario play out in a membership-based company that’s constantly offering special discount pricing to acquire new customers
When I asked other business professionals when it’s best to lose a customer or client, the reasons boiled down to the customer’s lack of respect and not being fully committed to the working relationship. Examples cited included: difficult interactions with or mistreating customer-contact employees being unresponsive and uncooperative paying late or not at all. The
For anyone focused on growing a company, it’s hard to turn down new business. But sometimes it’s necessary. My first experience with this situation took place nearly two decades ago, and I remember it clearly. After much debate and hand-wringing about submitting a proposal, I turned to a fellow consultant for feedback. I explained my
It’s been nearly seven years since I featured excerpts from Chris Bonney‘s white paper, The View from the Front, about adapting to the recession in my post, Help For Marketers Dealing with the “New Different.” Back then … What’s amazing to me is how little conditions have actually changed since Chris described them in 2009: “Consumers have
Signs of intelligent marketing at last! Lately I’ve seen more marketers respond to consumer sensitivity and backlash to promotional and informational overload – a major contributor to attention and intention deficit. Here are two examples. The first is an excerpt from Penny Sansevieri’s Book Marketing Alert newsletter*: I don’t know about you but I’m overwhelmed almost