What’s happening? Have business leaders suddenly abdicated control? Are meeting financial expectations overtaking common sense and good business judgment? Or, have corporations lost touch with their customers?
Striking Gold: The Top Five Myths about the Small Business Market
To many companies, the small and medium business (SMB) market represents the golden vein of market opportunity. Compared to the Fortune 1000 with–that’s right, still 1000 companies–SMB is a huge market with 8 million traditional businesses (plus another 32.5 million home-based businesses). The market is so big and seemingly inviting that the long string of previous failures just adds to the appeal. With so many big software and hardware companies targeting the SMB market, including some of our clients, this is a great time to take a look at some of the popular myths surrounding it.
Always About Engagement
We all want to be new school and know that the latest top hit song (via iTunes) is a song called SOS by Jonas Brothers. I had to look that up. Because what I pay attention to the most are things I already love. While I’d like to be super hip, the songs that run through my head are more like “The Way We Were” if I’m feeling melancholy, “Sweet Home Alabama” if I feel good, or Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” if I feel, ya know, sassy.
What does this have to do with marketing, you ask?
Aptitude vs. Attitude: HP Knows it Takes Consistency
HP watchers have been on quite a ride over the past few years. It’s been full of thrills, change, some major bumps, and, finally, a financial performance that has shareholders applauding. How did they get to this point? There are many explanations, but I like the contribution that consistent product messaging has made to their new situation.
Twittering Away
Spring brings the South by Southwest (SXSW) interactive, film and music festivals and conferences to Austin, Texas. This year, the events also spawned new interest in Twitter, the first microblog and originally an R&D project of Odeo. Tech celebrities at SXSW made heavy use of Twitter and created tremendous attention for it in their blogs and in the media. Winning the Web Award in the blog category increased the hype around it, though some users find the 140 character limitation difficult to work with.
The Nature of Things: Web Marketing
For each era, there are new rules. In the web world today, marketing online has new rules. Marketing is no longer about awareness online, but about creating an experience for the consumer or customer.
I propose the new marketing goal with online marketing is about engagement. Personal engagement. Connection from user to company. Customers like what you help them do. Your offerings are appealing and designed around and with them. Customers are delighted because they can exchange usages with one another and therefore find more ways to use your gadget. Joy of engagement brings them back again and again.
CMOs: Align Yourself to the C-suite
Is Marketing considered a a Corporate Performance Contributor? From conversations I’m having around the Valley, I’ve come to realize that marketing and its relevancy to the C-Suite is (in cleaned …
RIM's Blackberry Campaign Commentary
Blackberry’s been running a great campaign. It started with a banner ad. The banner asked you to share with Blackberry “why you loved it”. From there, you could read other …
RIM’s Blackberry Campaign Commentary
Blackberry’s been running a great campaign. It started with a banner ad. The banner asked you to share with Blackberry “why you loved it”. From there, you could read other …
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