Lynda Partner’s Marketing Morceaux

The best part about blogging is that it can be about opinions, unconstrained by the lack of context or data, just pure opinion.

Last week I went to a breakfast session put on by the good folks at Leger Marketing. The talk was about branding a nation as opposed to a corporation. I was fascinated by the subject as I have long had a secret desire to take on branding Canada as my next career challenge. It’s unlikely to ever happen but it sure is fun to think about how brand to the country I love so much.

So here are my thoughts as a citizen on what elements we should brand as a country. I know I am oversimplifying but hopefully it will be food for thought.

First my simple criteria for selecting my three point brand focus:

• Branding a nation is difficult so our brand focus should leverage something that is already culturally grounded in our psyches. For example, if we are not a warlike people, we should not consider a brand association with aggression.

• Branding a nation is time consuming so it should align with a macro trend that will help us leverage our brand position into real economic benefits that strengthen over time as the trend or trends develop

• Branding a nation should be about something that will benefit the citizens themselves as well as the external audiences for our brand

• Branding a nation should take into account the realities of attributes about the nation that are not easily overcome, for example in our case we have a very large geography that is not easily changed

• A brand strategy should have a focus – we can’t be all things to all people. People can’t remember any more than 3 things at any one time, so let’s keep our brand focus at 3 things.

• Our brand strategy should support economic as well as social goals – for example, increase tourism, exports, inward investment, talent attraction and retention

So without further ado for brand element #1, I think our Canadian brand should be associated with Extraordinary Customer Service.

Why?

• We are already known as “nice and polite”, why haven’t we translated this brand equity into something tangible. We can leverage attributes that already exist in our psyches.

• As technology becomes more commoditized, It is clear that customer service will increasingly be “the” competitive differentiator. With the advent of social media the ability of each and every consumer to talk about customer service and influence your business has increased exponentially. We’ve already lost control of the message, why not ensure that every interaction with a Canadian is a positive one and let the people promote our brand for us. There is nothing people would rather talk about than how they feel about a product, service or company.

• And lastly, we’d all benefit. Just think how much better life would be if Rogers and Bell Mobility offered extraordinary service. What would we do with the extra time we’d have, the time that we wouldn’t have to spend on hold or arguing about how their service really isn’t working as it should be.

The only downside? What would we complain about?
So chip in here – what do you think we should be known for up here in Canada?

I am a customer service nazi. I admit it. I admire those who deliver great service and I take great offense with those who don’t.

I like nothing more than acknowledging great customer service, and I have been known to make job offers on the spot to those who have given me great service because they are the type of person I want working for my company.

I almost always take the time to tell companies when their service falls short. I choose to believe they simply aren’t aware that their people need more training. I know its difficult to monitor everyone who delivers service, and in their shoes, I’d want to know if service isn’t what it should be. Read the rest of this entry »

The blog post below was originally written about a year ago but never published.  Why publish it now you ask?  This week I got more spam from this same company. It made me so angry that I dug up this post and I hope it gets wide distribution. Here’s why.

From 2008 sometime…….

The other day I got an email in my inbox. It said in part…. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve worked really really hard on my latest project – a crowd-sourced survey of Twitter users.  I’ve sweated over it and worked it and edited it and it’s ready to go. My plan is to use Twitter to get Twitter users to join in and share their insights about themselves. Then in the true spirit of social networking, I’ll share the results.

The survey is done, and I find myself unable to push the GO button because I am afraid.  There, I said it.  I AM AFRAID.

I am afraid that nobody will complete the survey
I am afraid that nobody will retweet my posts
I am afraid that I’ll annoy my followers if I talk about it
I am afraid that my voice is so very tiny that nobody will even hear it, and that will hurt

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These 5 signs that a company isn’t ready to start using social media tools come from my real-world conversations with company CEOs.

1. Your CEO or client says “Let’s get a blog going”. You ask who is going to blog about what. They say “Nobody has time but we can just summarize or talk about other people’s blog posts”.

2. Your CEO or client says “Let’s get on Twitter”  You say OK, what will we tweet?”  They say “Our press releases and product info of course, what else would we tweet?”

3. Your CEO or client says “Let’s get on Twitter” You say OK, who will tweet?”  They say “Everyone in the company, but we’ll need legal to approve each tweet first.”

4. Your CEO or client says “We need to get everyone talking to each other” You say OK, what do you have in mind? They say “We just sent out a link to < latest corporate social media platform >, that ought to do it.”

5. Your CEO or client says “Let’s get on Twitter” You say “OK, are our customers and partners on twitter?”  They say “Why does that matter, we just need to say we use social media”.

Here are 5 questions to ask when they say they need to get some of that social media stuff going.

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Experienced Twitter users have their own language, their own rules and they project an “in”crowd feeling which sometimes makes it difficult for a newbie to participate with confidence. On more than one occasion I have sat paralyzed with indecision, afraid to tweet the wrong thing and embarrass myself in front of my followers, or worse yet have my “oops” tweet retweeted to the larger universe.

Twitter pros, this article is not for you but feel free to forward it to all the newbies you know.

Twitter newbies, come on in – the water’s great!

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Run your business in the cloud for almost nothing? You bet you can.  Here are my Top 20 small business web-based productivity tools. If you are a consultant or agency or a road warrior, chances are you’ll enjoy some or even all of these great time and money savers. They are all free or less than $20/mo and they had to be dead easy to use or they didn’t make the cut cause most small business people don’t have IT teams.

1. CRM - contact and lead tracking, sales and contact management, sales pipeline management and forecasting, customer service and business management. Keep yourself organized! Free version available from www.freecrm.com, from $7/mo at www.sugarcrm.com
2. Market Research – Google Alerts is a “must-have” clipping service. Set up your favorite key words and www.google.com/alerts finds and delivers articles about any subject of your choosing to your inbox every day. Watch for news and mentions of your own company, your customers and your competitors. Free
3. Creative Design – Want a design for a new logo, brochure, website or business card? Go to either www.crowdspring.com, or www.99designs.com, upload your requirements, run a contest and pick your favourite. You pick the purse size, I’ve seen contests get dozens of great results for only a few hundred dollars. Read the rest of this entry »

One of my biggest pet peeves is what I call “blah blah blah marketing copy. Here’s an example:

“XYZ provides the ideal combination of advanced technology and expertise to information providers. Our solutions and services lower costs, streamline operations, create efficiencies and generate new revenue for our customers. Our mission is to unlock the true potential of your market and partner with you in growth.”

Logically I know I was reading a description of what XZY company does, emotionally all I heard was “Blah Blah Blah”. I had no idea what this company did, none! Be honest, you’ve done it too right? Read something and had absolutely no idea what the product was or why you might benefit from buying it. You’re probably like most of us, who don’t admit this for fear of looking dumb or uninformed. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I sat in on a webinar. Speaker was very good and the points he made was clear and interesting and relevant but I found myself unsatisfied when it was all over. It took me a few hours to figure out why – he didn’t show us any examples of “good” and “not so good” and because of that he wasn’t as effective as he could have been.

I like examples, especially simple ones that you get right away. My simple mind perhaps? Whatever the reason, because I have been researching successful B2B uses of Twitter lately I thought I would share this example of how Twitter helped at least one company make a sale. Read the rest of this entry »

On May 19th when I tried to access Twitter from my new laptop I realized that I had forgotten my password. Luckily I was able to use my old computer where I was still logged on. I realized then that requesting a new password meant having it sent by email, and in my case it was going to an email address that had been canceled. So, as I was still logged on to Twitter, I decided to change my email address – and discovered that you need your password to change your email address! I was stuck in the proverbial loop. A request (ok, make that 7 requests) to Twitter support asking them to send my new password to my new email address went answered. I was eventually able to re-opened my closed email account and retrieve my new twitter password but it really got me wondering if Twitter is ready for business to use as an integral part of their marketing mix.

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