Welcome to 2009, the Year of Engagement, Social Marketing and Web 2.0, Part 1 & 2 (updated)

With social media strongly in play (whether you like it or not), you don’t get to choose what’s said about your brand. Control of your brand image has been passed, torch-style, from the marketing department to your customers.

Your customers are becoming more and more voracious in their pursuit of information that’s not simply put forth by brands, but spread by their peers as brand advocates. Actually, it’s more like brand advocates and brand detractors.

Customer service now!!! The convergence of customer service and social media (and a moral)

There’s just too much prime opportunity online — e.g., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, etc. — for brands to get dinged when they screw up. In the few weeks I’ve been back from vacation, I’ve been thinking about this as I go about my day-to-day dealings with companies.

Twice in the last few weeks I’ve gotten dinged: once by a salesman and once by a so-called customer service rep (CSR). But helping to restore my faith in our industry, I also recently had a fantastic customer service experience as well.

Social Media and the United Breaks Guitars Video – A Cautionary Tale for ALL marketers

For the last year I’ve been saying — screaming actually — that companies better have their acts together, otherwise they’re sitting ducks in this new age of customer centricity. If your customer service, products and brand image aren’t all buttoned up, you risk getting skewered on the internet, i.e., the people’s media.

The video I’m referring to is really amazing to see. Here’s the story behind it: United Airline’s baggage handlers break a passenger’s guitar, and the next thing you know 5.3 million people hear about it in a catchy, four-minute ditty on YouTube. Viralocity at its finest (and scariest).

Blogging Primer – WHAT to blog for success

When used correctly, blogs can be an excellent tool for engaging prospects and customers — especially in today’s environment, when the companies we deal with are more machine than human. We call in and get interactive voice response rather than a live person. We read FAQs instead of speaking to customer service reps. It’s an isolated feeling.

So when I create a blog for a client, I do the following three things:

Make it…

You lost me there part 5 – Your call center is bleeding!

The Great Call-Center Disconnect:
Companies need to function under the guise that great — even sometimes so-so — direct marketing will make the telephone ring, but expertise in the call center will make the cash register sing! Ask yourself the following questions when evaluating your call center’s effectiveness:

9 Ways to Use Twitter as a Marketing Tool

It seems that Twitter is all the rage these days. The topic seems to polarize people: Some find it a useful and productive marketing tool, while others find it a waste of time and “much ado about nothing.” The following are nine quick tips on how to use Twitter to your benefit:

1. Call out and provide

FDMA Catalog Marketing Summit From The Basics to Beyond Thurs 4/16

FDMA Catalog Marketing Summit From The Basics to Beyond!
Date: Thursday, April 16, 2009
What does it take to manage a multi-channel catalog and thrive in this economy? Come join us on April 16 as our frank 5 person panel of experts teaches you from the inside out. Each expert has been hand chosen due to their expertise in specific area’s of catalog management. After each panelist makes their presentation, you will be able to get hands on and ask questions. Topics include…

Four Questions to Continually Ask About Your Customers, Products and Brand

You don’t have to operate any stores to always “mind the store.” For us in the catalog/direct/multichannel world, that means finding time in our 24/7, 365-days-a-year world to step back and ask ourselves a few questions. It’s not an easy task to pull back from our everyday happenings, especially in this insane and fear driven economy, but it’s still mission critical to stop and ask:

1. Are we the company…

Superior Product, Exceptional Customer Service: The keys to the success of Cloud 9 Adventures and Jam Cruise

In today’s social media age, it’s not enough to just build a brand and assume it’ll flourish. More than ever, companies need customers to be emotionally cemented to their brands via superior products and exceptional customer service.

For the past three years, I’ve been a customer of Cloud 9 Adventures, a company that exemplifies the spirit of customer centricity. Specifically, I’m a frequent passenger aboard its Jam Cruise line. … After each cruise, a large survey goes out to the passengers. This year’s contained 58 questions and arrived in my e-mail inbox one week after the cruise.

Know Me and Be Relevant: What I learned from Disney’s Keynote at NCDM

From its earliest days, relevance has been the goal for most direct and database marketers. Today however, relevance is not nearly enough. Today, we are closer than ever in actually realizing the power of 1:1 level relevant communications. Some might argue that the capability for 1:1 has been around for some time and that many companies are already successfully practicing it, but to some extent I have to disagree.