I’ve been pretty critical of Twitter’s recent attempts to ‘manage the health of the conversations‘ on its platform. Too often, these efforts seem to set in place mechanisms that could automatically enhance or suppress content based on whether or not this content contains certain topics. It could lead to giving an artificial impression that some […]
Baltimore Orioles Write Handwritten ‘Thank You’ Notes to Season Ticket Holders
Coming off an atrocious 108-loss season, the Baltimore Orioles decided to double-down on thanking the season ticket holders that stood by the team. The players recently wrote handwritten thank you letters to season ticket holders. Orioles Director of PR Kirsten Hudak talks about pitching the idea to the players: “I wasn’t sure what the reaction […]
Why Do Rock Stars Have Fans, While Companies Have Customers?
Gene Autry was a rock star decades before there was such a term. From the 1930s to the 1950s, “The Singing Cowboy” was one of the nation’s brightest film, radio and television stars. He died in 1998 as one of the richest 400 Americans, and the only entertainer in that group. I was recently watching […]
Selling Your Passion vs Selling Your Product
The vast majority of companies I work with are using social and digital media to build awareness for their brands. Typically, they contact me because their efforts aren’t getting the results they need. One of the first mistakes I often find is that these companies are selling before the buyer is ready to make a […]
How to Segment Your Engagement Strategy Based on Customer Type
Most companies have a customer engagement strategy, but that strategy views customers as one type and structures the strategy accordingly. Yet your customers are very different people, they might be a part of a larger group, but there are many smaller subsets of the larger group that your company should be aware of. Let’s review […]
The Secret Language of Happy Customers
Let’s say you are a die hard fan of the movie Memento, like I am. Think about the conversation you would have with someone who just saw the movie for the first time last night. Most of their input would likely be along the lines of “WTF did I just watch???” Now how would that […]
Research: How to Create Loyal Customers and Reduce Customer Churn Rate
Yotpo recently surveyed 2,000 American shoppers to learn their views on brands and brand loyalty. The results gave some interesting insights into brand loyalty in 2018, so I wanted to highlight some of the findings: Despite the growing importance of customer experience, product is still both the point of entry and departure for brand loyalty. 55.3% of […]
What’s Next For Blogging? Delivering Personalized Content Based on Visitor Intent
Recently I’ve been discussing how blogging will have a bit of a Renaissance soon as users move away from a centralized experience (social media sites like Twitter and Facebook) and back to a decentralized experience (like blogging). I believe blogging will become popular again as we look for ways to better gain control of the […]
Social Media is Destroying Our Ability to Create Impactful Content and Meaningful Connections
Go scan your timeline on Twitter or your news feed on Facebook. Look at the articles being shared, and more importantly, look at the headlines. After a while, you’ll begin to notice something. The headlines are written in a way to attract people that are already on Twitter and Facebook. This is important, because the […]
Marketing Shouldn’t be a Nuisance, it Should Be Sexy
Writing about marketing can be challenging. If it’s treated as merely a business function, writing on marketing can get very boring, very quickly. Not just for the reader, for the writer as well. But marketing can often be so much more than it is. The best marketing is never noticed, and you could argue that […]