MarCom Professional

I've been drinking coffee from a glass recently. The last time I did that was a few years ago and the experience wasn't altogether satisfactory. Unlike my previous experience in Marylebone, however, this time I was in Spain. In Spain, real men drink their coffee black. I'd tried ordering a white coffee ('con leche') but had been laughed out of the bar on the grounds of questionable sexual orientation. Real men definitively drink their coffee black in Spain. Black, and bastard strong. It's ok to have sugar for some reason, but milk is strictly for girls or men wearing dresses. More...

You spent countless hours crafting your marketing campaign investing money and hiring marketing experts to help guide you through the process. You get ready to push the launch button, waiting for emails and phone calls come pouring in, then…

Nothing happens. But what could go wrong?

You did the things that the marketing “experts” said you should do with your keywords, putting up blog articles day after day, uploading videos and sending out email newsletters.

Why?

Here are 10 reasons why you’re not getting the attention, buzz and most importantly - the sales conversion. More...

I have had a busy summer shouting at stupid people. Having received a brief for a European corporate ‘Awareness Campaign’, I duly presented the accumulated wisdom of my many years of awareness campaigning to Sir and a considerable flock of subordinates, (including a slightly sallow, moist and inexplicably flaking representative from a media agency…). The client expressed his “disappointment” that I hadn’t addressed their need for a “value proposition”. He worked his way around the room gathering opinion from his team who all said, “Baaaa… oooh yes Sir, you’re so right…”

I felt like a gunslinger walking into the saloon where the conversation stops and the piano player dives behind the bar. More...

As we progress into 2010, the rapid growth of social media has allowed more access to information, consumers, communities, and experiences.  This new medium has enabled a new way to communicate and share, from B2C to B2B marketers are all trying to figure out an edge.  Many brands start to focus on the hybrid approach which I believe will be the next phase of digital and web marketing.  The question is what role will it play in the marketing arsenal?

Here are 3 steps to consider when integrating social media to your marketing practices:

Brand Strategy Reassessment

Understand the changing habits of your customers should be the focus of your brand.  Use the 80/20 rule to segment your customers and identify the difference between your old customers and new customers.  The recession has permanently altered the way people think of value and the concept of trust. More...

Over the past months I wrote about how to find your customers in order to improve your customer segmentation and gain better understanding of your niche market. Everything goes back to connecting with your audience so you can craft campaigns utilizing tactics such as email marketing, SEO and social media. Then as more businesses learned the tools of the trade, I brought up the point of adding value on my last post because ultimately knowledge will be commoditized similar to most disruptive technologies. The trick is maximizing the use of your knowledge (when it's still valuable) to help you grow your business and become an authority in your domain expertise. More...

In a situation where you’re selling to multiple personalities, it’s best to first connect everyone on a common ground then articulate clearly what’s in it for each of them.  The goal is to stimulate an engaging conversation that allows us to change perception, diagnose expectations and bring clarity to the dialogue.

That’s the essence of developing a brand strategy – the foundation of your communication that builds authentic relationships between you and your audience.  It is by defining your brand strategy that allows you to utilize marketing, advertising, public relations and social media to consistently and accurately reinforce your character.  Without defining the core strategy, all channels of communication can often become a hit and miss expense. More...

Last year BusinessWeek published its 100 Best Global Brands 2009 and to no surprise, financial brands were largely untrusted which dragged down all brands across the board with them.  Moving forward, brands are rethinking how they can win back the trust focusing on the psychological aspect of marketing and advertising in an attempt to rebuild its relationship with customers. 

You can see from the gradual shift in magazine ads and TV commercials using regular everyday people to lead advertising campaigns instead of celebrities with messages such as the “we’re here for you in this economy” (Hyundai guarantee programs, Subway’s $5 foot long, Gieco’s money saving tips), or the “we stand by our product and services” (GM’s may the best car win, Carl’s Jr.’s value comparison with McDonald’s Big Mac) that centers around authenticity. More...

In today’s fragmented media world where we all have some attention deficit in our busy lives, there are simply too many sources of information thus finding a filter that we trust is extremely important. Most people tend to prefer value, look for key opinion leaders and trust one-on-one communication sources.

Accordingly to a recent "Purchaser Influence Survey” by EXPO provided to eMarketer, over 92% of US mom internet users trust peer review more than manufacturer’s brand information.  This data should not be a surprise because if you want recommendations for a restaurant or suggestions on buying a new cell phone, you’re pretty much going to first ask your friends.  If you’re really serious about the purchase, you will do your “homework” first by reading bunch of online reviews from Yelp to Amazon before accessing your trusted sources. More...

It’s no surprise that the increasingly social web have enabled customers to be heard while helping to improve the very products and services they’ve purchased. As millions of people continue to search online for the product they need and the service they want, do you know how the recession has impacted your customer’s value perception?  How are you going to improve the customer experience to optimize your products and services?

Your customer may have already shifted their spending in favor of private label brands over name brands or reduce the quantity or frequency of buying altogether.  Perhaps the freemium business model has become the new standard to get your customer to try your product. More...

I’m working on developing new ideas and wanted to share them here with you for your review and also to seek your feedback…

Everything begins with a shift in perspective from viewing stakeholders as a separate entity, “us vs. them,” to a singular view of “us ” as this enlivens a new era of community-focused marketing and engagement.

Social media introduces a new problem of sorts, one where the answer is lost in the politics and corresponding burrows of debate as to who owns social media within the organization. As brands venture into social networks, many are unwittingly contributing to the dilution of their brand image, value proposition, and mission amongst a new genre of social customers and influencers. More...