Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog

by: Jennifer Rice

Jim Berkowitz of CRM Mastery asked the following questions about branding in a recent post entitled Brand Messages: Fact or Fiction?:

How do companies come up with their branding strategies and messages? Do they consider their "strategic" positioning versus their competitors? To what degree do they base their branding strategies on customer needs and expectation feedback? Is their branding strategies contributing to developing loyal customers? And finally, do branding messages need to be backed-up with programs that fulfill their promise, or are they just some type of psychological ploy to attract new customers?

Continue reading "How-To's of Branding" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jennifer Rice

With his recent comment to my Semantics post, Damon B. resurrected the customer-centric versus buyer-centric debate:

CC, while it does have its short comings, is far superior to being BC. Buyer centricity leaves out some very important customers - most importantly the internal customers. Sure, a CC company can start looking at customers as acquisitions or transactions, but that's a result of the company failing to properly implement the policy. Claiming CC is not correct is like claiming fishing line is inferior b/c it broke when there was too much weight on the line. It's not the fishing lines fault, it was just poorly used.

If a company can not fully grasp how to be CC it will also fail at being BC.

Continue reading "Buyer-centric no more" »

Posted by Futurelab at 5:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jennifer Rice

Thanks to Paul at BrandAutopsy for the following comment to my post on the role of marketing:

Continue reading "Marketing Role, Part 3" »

Posted by Futurelab at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jennifer Rice

Thanks to David Foster at PhotonCourier for his comment on my recent post on the new role of marketing. He says,

"I think it's a stretch to say that "marketing might think of its task as resolving the conflicting needs and interests of stakeholders.." That's the responsibility of the chairman and the CEO (or, in a multidivisional company, the division general manager). Attempts by marketing people to claim such a broad scope would disperse efforts and by perceived by many as a territorial grab."

Continue reading "New Role of Marketing, Cont'd" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jennifer Rice

John Moore at OurHouse expands our blog dialogue on Engaging Employees (original posts here and here) and offers a wonderfully concise definition of marketing's role in the 21st century:

...marketing might think of its task as resolving the conflicting needs and interests of stakeholders. I suggest this because a focus on the word customer risks oversimplifying the real challenge... And as Jennifer's comments suggest, if marketing is limited to pleasing customers, without having either the power or responsibility for squaring that with everyone else at the party, then it is likely to waste resources.

Continue reading "New Role of Marketing" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jennifer Rice

There's a great article in the December issue of Harvard Business Journal: "The One Number You Need to Grow." . That one number is how many customers promote your business. Instead of measuring customer satisfaction, simply ask your customers one question: "How likely is it that you would recommend (company X) to a friend or colleague?" The author's research indicated that responses to this one question were highly likely to predict actual customer behavior that would lead to profitable growth. The article summarizes what Church of the Customer has been evangelizing: "The only path to profitable growth may lie in a company's ability to get its loyal customers to become, in effect, its marketing department."

Continue reading "Promoters Versus Detractors" »

Posted by Futurelab at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jennifer Rice

This is a bit off my normal subject matter, but it's something I've been thinking about lately.

Since I started blogging, I'm starting to feel like a neuron in a vast brain; my thought processes are improving and speeding up with every new connection that's formed. Yet I just started my weblog a month ago; where will I be in one year from now? Ten years from now? And just where is this whole blog thing going, anyway?

Continue reading "Blogging and the Singularity" »

Posted by Futurelab at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend