By Mark on Aug 12, 2008 in Branding, CRM, Offer, Process, customer service | 1 Comment
I've written about good customer service in the past, highlighting my excellent experience with L.L. Bean. I've postulated that quality customer service is actually free, because the incremental sales more than make up for "excessive" talk time and refunds/credits granted by your customer service representatives.
Here's a trivially-observed example of what lousy customer service will cost you. In this example, from Verizon, it's a minimum of $100.
The saga unfolds after the break. Read the rest
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By Mark on Aug 11, 2008 in Branding, Featured, Marketing, Strategy | 0 Comments
When it comes to creating an emotional brand experience, forget copy, taglines, imagery and brand iconography.
There's nothing like touching and feeling a product first-hand. Tasting the product is even better. Especially when that taste is vaporized rubber and burning brake pads.
Of course you have to be a gearhead, enjoy automobiles and love driving. That's why Audi's Driving Experience is perfect in terms of targeting and likely a big success in generating sales.
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By Mark on Aug 6, 2008 in Advertising, Analytics, Featured, Optimization, SEO/SEM | 2 Comments
De-averaging your marketing investments and paying close attention to how your incremental marketing investments pay off is a post I've been intending to write for a while now.
The good folks at Rimm-Kaufman group, however, saved me the trouble with yesterday's excellent PPC Averages can Hide Incremental Nightmares. Please take the time to read it.
As I was reading it, I started to think about applying LTV to the methodology. When you think about making decisions based on LTV, the story becomes even more clear. All will be revealed (with a graph!) after the break.
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By Mark on Jul 21, 2008 in Commentary, Featured | 1 Comment
Are the Beijing Olympics headed for an opening ceremony marketing problem? Today's Wall Street Journal raises the specter of athletes wearing masks to the opening ceremony and causing China to lose face. Other blogs and sources are starting to pick up on this.
What if 10 or 20% of the athletes in the opening ceremony parade walked in wearing face masks to protect themselves from the pollution and, ultimately, their chance at an Olympic medal? What does that say about the Chinese government? Do you want that imagery tied to your brand, after paying tens or hundreds of millions to be the official X of the Games?
Do you have a contingency plan in place? What will you say when images of mask-clad athletes in the murky Beijing air, in front of your expensive banner, are transmitted to the world?
Just a thought and one I haven't fully wrapped my head around yet. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
photo credit: upton
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By Mark on Jul 20, 2008 in Email marketing, customer service | 0 Comments
Apple's .mac service changeover to MobileMe was a complete debacle. The system was down for more or less the day before the iPhone 2.0 launch and for that entire day. If you rely on your .mac account for your email, like a lot of independent consultants and graphic design professionals, that downtime cost you real money.
I've got a .mac account for backup and file exchange purposes, so the downtime was more of an annoyance to me than anything. I didn't expect anything from Apple, except an update telling me that everything was stable and an apology.
To my surprise, I got an email apologizing as well as a free month of service. Smart customer service move by Apple which, like L.L. Bean, knows service. The cost of providing that extra month of service is ~$0 and should easily pay for itself in forgone churn.
Nice job, Apple. Email from Apple is after the jump. Read the rest
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