Go Low-Tech, High-Touch for Major Impact - Smart Calling Blog. In our age of being constantly electronically connected to our Blackberrys, iPhones, social media sites and more…let’s stop and revisit what really makes a memorable difference in sales, and all of life for that matter: the personal touch, and the little things that mean a lot.
One example that sticks out in my mind happened a few years ago while I was waiting for my order in the take-out area of a Famous Dave’s barbeque. (By the way, I cook barbeque competitively and have won in contests, and I can say that for a chain, Famous Dave’s puts out an outstanding product). While waiting, I noticed the owner of this franchise location at the time, meeting and greeting customers. Now, this was no regular restaurant owner; he’s Willie Thiesen, founder of the Godfather’s Pizza chain. So I’m sitting there, looking very unimportant in my beat-up sweatshirt, jeans, pulled-down faded ballcap, sporting three-day beard stubble, and he sits down next to me on the bench. "Waiting for your takeout order? " How to Sell the Value of Social Media to People Who Don't Get It.
10 Lessons Learned from Avinash Kaushik's Magnum Opus on Facebook Marketing. Date / / Category / Data, Marketing Earlier this week, Avinash Kaushik, who’s certainly among the most brilliant marketing minds of the generation, wrote an exceptional piece on Facebook Marketing.
It’s a lengthy read, but a worthwhile one, and I urge anyone who reads this site and uses Facebook to reach an audience to spend 30 minutes to fully parse what he’s put together. (from Avinash’s post) Given that I enjoyed the piece and felt it made some excellent points, I wanted to try to summarize those here, and provide some takeaways and perspectives of my own. Let’s start with the big lessons learned: Success (or failure) of a Given Campaign on Facebook Does Not Make the Platform Good (or Bad) – as Avinash wisely points out in his introduction, correlation is not causation, and hearing a great success story or a terrible failure shouldn’t swing your perspective.
Are we killing our customers with engagement? By Neicole Crepeau, Contributing {grow} Columnist Facebook is seeing a decline in use.
Studies show that users are un-Liking business pages. Consumers are getting savvy and more jaded about businesses use of social media—and they’re responding negatively. The thing is, it’s our own fault. Social media consultants and bloggers have long urged companies to create Facebook pages and Twitter accounts and start a conversation with their customers. Sure, there are exceptions. It may be worth engaging that minority deeply, as brand advocates. As I noted in my recent post, If You Want to Engage Me, Make Me Look Good, the conversation approach ISN’T customer-centric. Customers aren’t beating down the doors of businesses begging them, “engage with me, please!” Customers want to engage with their friends. Don’t get me wrong. It’s the inane and sometimes manipulative attempts to converse and engage people that I’m decrying. Do you agree? Sharing Budget & Resources with Colleagues & Counterparts. Don’t you just love it when you learn something accidentally?
I sure do, because those brushes with serendipity can have a huge impact on your long-term success. Let me explain what I mean by sharing a quick story: Some time ago, I was approached by some colleagues in charge of managing of a different part of HSN’s digital business. They felt that there was a lot of opportunity to leverage SEO – one of the channels that I manage – in order to drive incremental revenue and market penetration. I agreed, and decided to pitch in some of my marketing budget in order to bring in a new vendor that could help capture some of that SEO opportunity for this particular portion of the business.
To be fair, I felt that there was something in it for me (e.g. generating incremental natural search revenue in aggregate) and so I didn’t think much about sharing my resources. I think that a lot of us marketers get stuck in the weeds of tactical implementation and strategic planning.