Have you ever noticed how difficult some people make it to connect with them? I can understand the very elite, supremely famous celebrities that are so inundated with attempted contacts from masses of strangers that they absolutely need to put up barriers. But, what about those whose web sites and professions would lead one to believe that they make a living based on their ability to serve the needs of potential customers, existing clients or others who could help them make valuable connections? Continue reading “Why Are You Hiding Your Contact Information?”
Category: Business Development
Can Your Brand Be *Too* Well-Recognized? Apparently Yes!
An article in the November issue of Entrepreneur raises an interesting perspective on the proliferation of big brands and whether having a big brand can, in some cases, be a negative.
Apparently, Starbucks – arguably a big, big, brand – is going incognito in some markets. It’s opening up neighborhood coffee shops Continue reading “Can Your Brand Be *Too* Well-Recognized? Apparently Yes!”
Listening and Learning…From Social Media and Everywhere Else!
A recent study from PRWeek and communications agency MS&L, reported in BtoBonline.com, indicated that almost 70 percent of marketers say they’ve never made a change to their products or marketing campaigns based on consumer feedback on social media sites.
Now this number may be shocking, until you learn who the survey was distributed to. Continue reading “Listening and Learning…From Social Media and Everywhere Else!”
What Do Your Customers Want?
Last weekend I was at a craft show – an annual outing where I sell beaded jewelry that I design and “dabble at” throughout the year. Unlike previous shows, this year I sold hardly any ear rings, usually a high demand item both because of their uniqueness and low price I think (I have to be honest with myself!). This year I sold Continue reading “What Do Your Customers Want?”
Little Touches Leave Lasting Impression
Our water heater went out recently and my husband researched and ordered a part online from – www.plumbingsupply.com. Not the kind of company that one might, necessarily, expect anything special from, right? After all, a plumbing part is a plumbing part.
But the day the part was delivered – I heard my husband exclaim first: Continue reading “Little Touches Leave Lasting Impression”
Social Media as a Process Improvement Tool?
While Facebook can be fun and Twitter seems to have captured the interest of the masses who are all tweeting in 140-character mini-blogs about everything from what they had for breakfast to the emerging news event they just saw outside their window, many still point to these tools as more of a diversion than a legitimate business tool.
Until recently. Continue reading “Social Media as a Process Improvement Tool?”
Spread the word! It’s all about word of mouth.
When it comes to making an impact on consumer buying decisions, word-of-mouth (WOM) matters. In fact, a recent study demonstrated just how much it matters. BIGresearch’s “Simultaneous Media Usage Study” (SIMM12), explored how U.S. consumers believed word-of-mouth influenced their purchases in various product categories.
While some categories were reported as being more highly impacted than others, the lowest Continue reading “Spread the word! It’s all about word of mouth.”
Yes, Price Matters – Duh!
You can talk all you want about the “value proposition” and about how consumers don’t *really* make purchase decisions based on price, but when it gets right down to it, guess what – they do. Don’t you?
All else being equal (ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL in the opinion of the consumer, whose opinion is the only opinion that counts), price matters. Of course it does. Why would Continue reading “Yes, Price Matters – Duh!”
Your Best Customers Are Your Best Customers
We’ve all heard it before, but somehow in our ongoing quest to add *new* customers, we have a tendency to forgot to focus attention on the ones we already have.
Datran Media, an e-mail services company, recently asked marketers to rank what advertising goals they considered most important for 2009. The results were: Continue reading “Your Best Customers Are Your Best Customers”