Welcome to M4 Communications' Five Customer Experience Trends to Watch for in 2021. Before we dive into what's in store for this year, let's take a look at the state of Customer Experience. If we were at the beginning of 2020, no one could have predicted how upside-down, sideways, diagonal our lives would become at [...]
Net Promoter Score (NPS) has been a hot topic ever since it was developed 15 years ago. Depending on what side of the fence you're on, you might or might not hold a lot of value in the metric. Recently I participated with some of my customer experience colleagues in a blog post discussion of [...]
I've been reading posts about how Customer Experience is the new Marketing. Is it? The Difference Between Customer Experience and Marketing The definition of Marketing, per Merriam-Webster, is: "the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service" Dr. Philip Kotler defines Marketing as “the science and art of exploring, creating, and [...]
For marketers to be successful, they can’t muddle through with blinders or rose-colored glasses on. They must be informed and know which marketing activities work, and which don’t. That means understanding the mechanics of measurement. Marketing and measurement are like lock and key. You need both to be successful and grow. Unfortunately, some marketers still [...]
In Part I of "How To Conduct Win-Loss Analysis To Achieve Strategic Growth", I discussed the pre-interview and interview phases of Win-Loss Analysis. The post-interview phase is the most important element of the Win-Loss Analysis process. During this phase, you will gain insights on how to actually improve your processes, and as a result, better [...]
I have been involved with Win-Loss Analysis from the product and sales sides since the mid–1990’s and have written about the subject since 2009. To this day, I do not understand why more companies aren’t conducting win-loss interviews, analyzing results and implementing lessons learned. When I speak with companies, many think they know the answers [...]
There are many opinions about content gating these days. There have been LinkedIn Group discussions about it as well as blog posts debating or trying to visualize it. I recently asked marketers on a LinkedIn Group discussion about content gating. I posed three questions - (1) Are you gating content? (2) What content types do you [...]
This month, eMarketer published a post citing results from an April 2014 study conducted by VisionEdge Marketing and ITSMA. eMarketer noted that 85% of marketers worldwide said the pressure to measure marketing’s business value and contribution had increased. eMarketer cited another study in the post, one conducted by ifbyphone in May 2014, which indicated that much of [...]
By Nicole Yuen It's the summer and as the weather heats up, it's a perfect time to "check-in" to ensure that your marketing is on fire to end 2014 with a bang. Use this 11-point checklist to ensure a successful mid-year marketing check-in and your marketing is on track. 1. Conduct a mid-year content audit. [...]
Last week I read a Wall Street Journal post by Jessica Livingston entitled "Why Startups Need to Focus on Sales, Not Marketing". While reading the post, I kept on remembering a line from one of my favorite films, Taps, where the lead character's father says to him, "Let me tell 'em it was growing pains [...]
One thing I like about engaging with my social networks is being able to ask questions and get people’s thoughts on issues, problems, and trends. Recently, I asked on Twitter, “Do marketing and sales still have trouble working together?” The answer was particularly telling: “No. They just do it badly.” In many organizations, the challenge [...]
I recently asked a marketing director about customer testimonials on his company website. He openly said, "The testimonials aren't real, I made them up. Everybody else does it, so why can't we?" My second thought, after "Two wrongs don't make a right," was "Aren't you in the business of building trust? What does that say [...]
Recently I was honored to be the guest on one of Content Marketing Institute's #CMWorld chats, a weekly twitter chat (Tuesdays 12pm EST) that discusses content marketing. That day, we discussed Niche Content Marketing. Check out the full transcript of that chat. Are you a mass marketer or a niche marketer? Would you be surprised [...]
Recently, I read CMSwire.com's post about IDC's 2014 predictions for CMO's with very keen interest. As the digital economy evolves so does the role of the CMO. 10 predictions for the changing role of the CMO were cited. A few of the predictions particularly stood out for me. "By 2020, the marketing function in leading [...]
I remember when Bill Lee's post in Harvard Business Review came out in August 2012. There was outrage in the marketing community. Well, how could there not be outrage? The title of his post was "Marketing Is Dead". He was right - traditional marketing is dead. This is where I diverge. Mr. Lee notes "Traditional [...]
A positioning statement in its basic form answers who you are, what you do and why people should care about you. A well-worded positioning statement is the theme to all of your content, what ties your content together and is the “logline” of your brand story. And, of course, it must include your value proposition. [...]
Hello nonprofits. Welcome to 2014. We don't have a lot of time for people to get to know us. In fact, it takes people three seconds to determine whether they are interested in you. Nonprofits need to be laser-focused on their content and social marketing efforts to differentiate themselves from the others. Here are seven [...]
I used to think that the entertainment and technology industries were on opposite sides of the industry spectrum - they couldn’t be the furthest from each other. I felt that way about marketing within these two industries, too. Since I have been a marketer in both these arenas – I consider myself living at the [...]
Digiday had a great post about how brands define engagement. Is the definition they provide in theory or practical? And, what if you don't have a top brand? Does the definition change? So, what say you?
If Joan Crawford was alive today, her "no more wire hangers!" might be transformed to "no more online submission forms!" Online submission forms serve their purpose...sometimes. The goal typically is to generate leads. However, a company should strongly consider the implications of having that form. Is it overkill? Is it not enough? This is something [...]
