Star Wars is one of the most successful movie franchise in history. Disney’s marketing of the seventh movie in the series, The Force Awakens, represents a great case study in action. Jason Mollica and I teamed up to provide an analysis of the Star War hype engine.
Is content marketing a tactic or a strategy? An examination of why the latter is becoming a weakness for many marketers.
Let’s talk about sales. Customers don’t care about our online brand conversations.
The desire for customers to have personal relationships with brands remains the greatest myth pushed by today’s online marketers.
Then there’s the assertion that increased engagement will lead to stronger relationships.
Mmmm, not necessarily. Chatty versus cheap toothpaste, who wins the deal?
Social engagement can lead to customer loyalty or a win in an apples to apples situation (up to 15% of customers, says Gartner). But ultimately, if there’s a significant value difference between competitive offerings, the conversation won’t carry day.
Read More »Customers Don’t Care About Us
Social media experts will tell you that social is word of mouth marketing (WOMM). Experienced grassroots marketers may be confused, thinking word of mouth occurs person-to-person in a wide variety of ways, with social offering another venue for that. Now grassroots marketers have the proof to push back on social media experts.
A recent study from the Temkin Group shows post purchase word of mouth feedback will more likely occur via email, phone calls, in person, or directly to the company rather than social media.
Read More »WAKE UP CALL: Word of Mouth Marketing more than Social Media
Google’s DC Office Featured Love Bugs on Valentine’s Day
The Wall Street Journal slammed Google last week for launching another social network when one wasn’t needed (um, yeah, that’s why Pinterest is doing so poorly, right?). Meanwhile, Google has quietly been deploying its local offices to meet with businesses and internet aficionados. The company wants to humanize the Google brand, and personally help people use Google+ and other products.
This is a smart move, one that Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have yet to match. Google is literally investing in relationships one by one, and putting faces to what has often seemed a distant and monolithic company.
So many of today’s untrained marketers believe that social media is the primary form of grassroots communications. In reality, they form just one component of a strong word of mouth strategy. Great word of mouth includes personal interactions through meetings like these, small events, local outreach, strong email management, and core stakeholder loyalty development programs.
Read More »Google Puts Feet on the Street
Image by Aunt Owwee Recent news from Google has increased the value of good, old fashioned blog links. The dominant search engine has declared war on content farms, effectively wiping out an estimated 11.8% of front page results, primarily those… Read More »Why You Want the Link Love
