Get Schooled on Customer Engagement Share Far too many business leaders think they can make a few one-off improvements to their organization's customer experience, and voilà, customer engagement will follow. If it was only that easy. "Customer experience is a journey, not a destination," Sophie Vlessing reminded attendees during her session at NACCM earlier this week. Vlessing, senior vice president of strategic marketing and student experience at Kaplan University, shared her roadmap for taking a customer experience journey that leads to ongoing innovation: Start with customer understanding Innovate based on insights Engage throughout entire lifecycle Provide value-added content and experiences Inspire to build emotional connection and vision for future Leverage and enable student advocacy through social media One of the innovations this approach led to at the university is The Kaplan Commitment. The Kaplan Commitment: Another innovation is Visionary Voices.
Infographic Design Idea Sites « Will Scott 2 May I’ve been thinking a lot about Infographics lately. There are a lot of mediocre Infographics out there without much quality in either the information or the graphic. That said, there are also a bunch of good ones. I also brought in this book from my Architecture School Days. Here’s the list: What are your favorite Infographic and data visualization sites? Thanks @rondomingue for another good suggestion: Update 11/14 Like this: Like Loading... How a photographer generated over $100,000 through Facebook When I asked Craig Finlay how Facebook became a major lead generator for his wedding photography business, he interrupted me mid-sentence. “It’s not a major lead generator,” he said. “It’s the entirety of the business.” Finlay’s experience is a neat case study in the power of social marketing. Up until 2010 or so, photography had been mostly a hobby. He was an avid practitioner of urban exploration, a term for photographers who enter — oftentimes illegally — abandoned buildings and urban structures to photograph their interiors. Every person who was at the wedding was promoting Soda Fountain Photography’s content to their social graph. Finlay worked as a reporter for a small daily paper in Illinois for a year, and in his capacity there he regularly took photographs. Settling on shooting weddings was the obvious choice; Finlay was partway through a PhD in information science at Indiana University*, and weddings wouldn’t conflict with his schedule, as they often occurred on weekends.
What Crabs in a Pot Have to Do with Leadership Presence Last week, I spent an afternoon sparking a conversation on leadership presence with a group of rising leaders in a well known organization. The conversation turned to how difficult it can be to lead change because there are often a lot of structures and norms in place that create massive barriers to change. That’s where leadership presence becomes so critical. To illustrate that point last week, I told a story that I don’t usually tell in professional settings but it just seemed right at the time. He began by asking if we’d ever seen crabs in a pot getting boiled. Mr. At the suggestion of a friend and client, I read most of Seth Godin’s book, Linchpin , over the weekend. “If you seek to become indispensable, a similar question is worth asking: ‘Where do you put the fear?’ The linchpin feels the fear, acknowledges it, then proceeds. Linchpins are leaders. What have you learned so far about overcoming resistance, not getting pulled back in and bringing others with you? P.S.
The One Thing Most Social Media Marketers Forget [Plus Infographic] Christmas only comes once a year and it is fun to see the children tear off the paper and unwrap their presents. It is more like a destruction derby than a party! Paper, string and wrapping fly in all directions as the journey of toy discovery unfolds. Parents and grandparents watch the unfolding scenario like the Super Bowl or the Football World Cup, cheering from the sidelines. The Christmas card and the “thank you” is often forgotten and the focus is on discovering what exciting new present that Santa has delivered! The toy is seized with shouts of glee and overt unbridled enthusiasm and for the next 10 minutes it is the centre of attention. Soon the next toy is unwrapped and the now “old” toy is discarded, maybe to never be used again. The Shiny New Toy Effect Social media marketing is the “shiny new toy” and it has been unwrapped and it has us all enthralled and excited. The Humble Email One plus One Equals Three? It actually looks like one plus one could actually equal four! More Reading
How Social Media Helped Kate Spade Become a Global Brand If our play-by-play coverage is any testament, Kate Spade New York ranks among the strongest brands in the online marketing space. From Twitter and Tumblr to Instagram and online video, we've been consistently impressed with the quality and strength of voice the fashion and lifestyle label has brought to each new platform. We're not alone: Luxury research and advisory firm L2 ranked Kate Spade second in its third annual Digital IQ Index in the fashion category, just behind Burberry. Four years ago, the label's future was less certain. Since then, the label has expanded aggressively into new product categories and markets, introducing a ready-to-wear line in 2009 and establishing flagships in half-a-dozen new countries. What was Kate Spade like when you came on board in 2008? What I found was really a niche brand with an amazing heritage and amazing DNA ... Can you tell me about the five-year plan you developed at the time? How has Kate Spade expanded internationally in that period?
The Complexity Challenge | BUSINESS RESEARCH The Complexity Challenge An Economist Intelligence Report that assesses how firms are coping with complexity. From The Economist Intelligence Unit Read more The value challenge This report is part of a larger programme, Reinventing Biopharma, sponsored by Quintiles. Read more Facing the sanctions challenge in financial services A Deloitte report, written in co-operation with the Economist Intelligence Unit Read more The convergence challenge A KPMG report, written in co-operation with the Economist Intelligence Unit Read more The mobile data challenge The mobile data challenge is an Economist Intelligence Unit research paper, sponsored by Innopath. Read more Too good to fail? Banking and insurance industries face new hazards as they regain their appetite for growth. Read more The personalisation challenge Read more Supply on demand An Economist Intelligence Unit report, sponsored by Zuora Read more The convergence evolution A KPMG report, written by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Read more
Survey: Inbound Marketing Cost Per Lead Is 60% Lower Than Outbound So, how can your organization lower its marketing costs by 60%? Two years of data are clear: Do inbound marketing . HubSpot's 2010 State of Inbound Marketing report , being released today, shows that Inbound-dominated organizations average 60% lower cost per lead than outbound-dominated organizations! The report is based on a survey of 231 people involved with or familiar with their business' marketing strategy. We asked them to provide their average cost per lead, then compared the cost-per-lead for organizations that focus on inbound marketing ( Social media , blogs , PPC , SEO ) to the cost per lead for organization that focus on outbound marketing (direct mail, telemarketing, trade shows). This year's cost-per-lead results are remarkably consistent with the 61% lower cost per lead that we found a year ago when we conducted the same survey . Other key findings of the 2010 State of Inbound Marketing report:
Local high-tech firms see big need for STEM jobs (with video) - Cecil Whig: Business The world's developed nations jostle for position at the starting line of a foot race. A gun pops, and the racers spring forward. China, India and Brazil hurl ahead, blind to anything but forward progress. That the U.S. is falling behind - particularly with regard to competitiveness in science, technology, engineering and mathematics - is becoming a reality difficult to ignore. The World Economic Forum currently ranks the United States 48th in quality of math and science education, and according to The Science Coalition, in 2009, 51 percent of U.S. For technology companies, the lack of STEM-savvy employees is an urgent problem. Three of the area's top tech companies - including Alliant Techsystems and W.L. With Cecil County's unemployment averaging 9.3 percent in 2011, able, working bodies should be easy to come by, it would seem. Bill Prins, vice president of mission assurance and safety at ATK, says the company uses complex systems to manage all aspects of the plant.
StumbleUpon's Mobile Growth Rockets 800%; Company Unveils Major Redesign With 250 Brand Partners StumbleUpon, the discovery engine that enables its users to "Stumble" onto personalized web content, unveiled a major redesign Monday, introducing a slew of upgrades that include a streamlined interface, recommendation improvements, and the addition of brand channels. But what's really driving the overhaul isn't some product-cycle deadline--it's StumbleUpon's mobile growth, which has rocketed 800% in the last year, becoming core to the company and its future business potential. "We're doing a complete relaunch of the site, and a lot of it is inspired by our mobile experience," says CEO Garrett Camp. "It's basically because of our mobile traction. Like Reddit and Digg, StumbleUpon helps users discover new content, but with a slight twist: a "Stumble" button adds a bit of random serendipity into the equation, allowing users to leap to unknown content with one click. "Mobile is going to be big [for us]," Camp says. "I think this will spread awareness," Camp says.