Making money through "charitable contributions"

Seth Harwood's Latest
Print Release

Check out this link: http://kck.st/piYHWd.  It'll take you to a page where one of my favorite authors, Seth Harwood, is raising money to help fund an independent book release.  While it might not be ideal for all situations, it seems to be a viable new way to get some initial funding through, what is essentially, charitable giving.  It's actually a genius idea to offer people the chance to be listed as a contributor IN THE BOOK if you send some cash his way.

How Could Customer-focused Marketing Hurt Your Brand?

Click here to go to a BrandAid from Killian Branding.  It brought up interesting downsides to being a customer-focused company.  In an age where customer-centric activities are expected of all businesses, claims of being focused on customers' needs change from competitive advantage to liability.

Unfortunately for many companies, they still tout their love of customers as their main strength.  If you think about it, though, who DOESN'T love their customers?  Buyers of your products are who keep the doors open; without them, you would have no business.  So, of course, you love them to pieces.  It's a give!

On what, then, should companies focus their attentions?  The article states some interesting statistics that help put it in perspective.  For instance, if a company experiences 6% growth each year with it's current customer base, it will double its business in 12 years.  That's not bad, but, especially for companies with high growth potential, that could be increased dramatically by focusing efforts on gaining new loyal customers.  That's right: NEW customers!

Remember the old adage: it's more expensive to gain a new customer that to cultivate an existing one.  Does this new focus mean the adage isn't true anymore?  No, of course not!  It's still cheaper to keep existing clients. That means that less time and energy has to be spent to keep them happy.  Now, what can you do with the extra time?  Get NEW customers!

-MJP

Gun Lovin' Fun!

Which one of these is not like the others?

If you guessed that only one of them has a big, white tag, you're RIGHT...but it's not what I was thinking of when I snapped this shot at Walmart. I, of course, was looking at the PINK gun on the left.

Cleaning House, Part 3: Targeting

Picking the correct target is more simple if you've done a good job of cleaning your data. If you skipped that step, go back and read "Cleaning House, Part 2: List Hygiene." Hygienic lists are imperative if you want targets that are well focused. I know that I often want to include as many people as possible, but with well-crafted campaigns, you'll get better response rates than if you go with a broader target.

Cleaning House, Part 2: List Hygiene

The only thing better than putting on a warm shirt right out of the dryer is putting on a CLEAN warm shirt right out of the dryer.

The Problem with Second Life

In response to another LinkedIn, question about the advantages to marketing in Second Life, I said:

"From an Internet marketing standpoint, the pros are minimal. I've dabbled in Second Life, and most of what I found was a lot of people trying to escape reality. That can be a viable target market, but most of the products for sale in Second Life are only useful IN Second Life itself. So, unless you have an entirely virtual product for use in the "game," there's no use looking into marketing opportunities in that arena. People I ran into in the game were looking to escape reality, not to go there and be bombarded with the 'same old stuff.'"

Axis and Allies: Part 2

Just to reiterate, this isn't just about a method (ie tactic) that can be used to strike the target market at its core. It's a process that must be followed to achieve maximum marketing effectiveness.

All of your research will lead you to: the INSIGHT. This insight is the key to your campaign; it's the nugget of truth that glows white hot at the center of the marketing plan. An insight is a universal truth that all your customers share as an intrinsic value that they see in your product or service.

It's your Axis and Allies battle cry that trumpets your cause and helps you win the day. Find that insight, and you've found the key to the marketing kingdom.

The insight is what helps to guide and develop the direction of the next step: the strategy.

Comments on Chaotics - Part 1

Philip Kotler, the marketing “expert” everyone seems to look to for inspiration, has written yet another book to garner praise for stating the obvious. This one, entitled, Chaotics: The Business of Managing and Marketing in The Age of Turbulence, centers around two forces that are driving the rapid changes in business today: globalization and technology.

In my opinion, this book is about five years too late, and will only be useful to C-level executives that have their heads so far up their own, or their CEOs’, rear ends that they can’t see what’s been developing over the past half decade.

These ideas can also be helpful, I suppose, to people who are new to the work force and have no clue how to form their own thoughts based on their surroundings.

I haven’t read the book yet – I probably won’t read it anyway – but from the interview Mr. Kotler gave in Deliver magazine, he seems confused. In the first part of the interview, he states that Chaotics isn’t about the current recession, but instead about the previously mentioned two forces (technology and globalization) that have increased the speed at which circumstances change in the current business environment. Then, in the very next question, he mentions technology again, but includes three MORE forces that can affect a company: social change, legal change and economic change. That’s now a total of FIVE forces that must be monitored.

In answering the next question, Kotler talks about Chaotics’ description of the current recessionary economics and how customers are responding to it. I hate to say it, but this story is nothing new. Since the great depression, there have been 12 recessions. In each one, people have responded by buying lower priced items, postponing big-ticket purchases and spending less on things like fuel and eating out. Customers’ reactions to tough times can really be boiled down to ONE thing: looking for ways to SAVE MONEY.