Buzz Builder

Customer Service Is the Future of Marketing

A couple of days ago, I heard a great interview on NPR's Talk of the Nation with Emily Yellin, author of Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us. Emily spoke about the history and future of customer service and discussed some fascinating research that she did at customer service centers around the world. One comment that I found particularly striking and true: "Customer service is the future of marketing."

Too many companies are preoccupied with trying to stir up interest in their products and services with word of mouth marketing. Yet, once they get a prospect to call them, visit their websitie, or come into their showroom, poor service prevents them from making the sale. Or, even worse, the customer makes a purchase and then has a problem that the company fails to resolve in a quick and satsifactory manner.

Positive word of mouth will grow when a company delivers upon its promises with stellar customer service. Many businesses would be much better served getting their customer service practices in order so that purchases create happy customers willing to come back and refer their friends.

Buzz Marketing Camp Launching in San Francisco Bay Area - Learn How to Get People Buzzing & Buying on a Tight Budget

Many businesses are struggling to attract customers with reduced marketing dollars. Even companies that have kept their marketing budgets intact are finding it increasingly difficult to meet their sales objectives since consumers are buying less and not responding to traditional advertising. That's why I'm launching Buzz Camp which is a results-producing, idea-generating half-day workshop designed to help businesses of all sizes break through the commercial clutter and get people buzzing and buying in spite of a challenging economic environment. The first Buzz Camp will take place on 4/23/09 in Berkeley, CA in association with the Emeryville Chamber of Commerce.

Buzz Camp will cover:

• The latest trends in buzz marketing and what they mean for your business.
• How to build a cohesive brand message that drives business growth.
• Buzz secrets from America’s most successful companies.
• How to create buzz through online newsletters, seminars, special events, blogs, networking (both face-to-face and online including Facebook and LinkedIn), consumer review websites (Angie’s List, CitySearch, Yelp, etc.), and viral videos.
• The inside scoop on what the media and bloggers want and how to generate free publicity that greatly exceeds what you could afford to purchase in advertising.
• How to obtain free and prominent media and blogger coverage using a simple three-step process that Patrick developed to land his clients in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Business Week, Forbes, Boston Globe, InStyle, Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Business Times, San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, The View from the Bay (KGO TV), NBC News, Evening Magazine (KPIX TV) , KTVU News, Home & Garden Television, etc.
• Techniques to increase the loyalty and enthusiasm of your customers and prospects that drive repeat sales and referrals.
• How to get to the top of Google and other leading search engines through search engine optimization (SEO) without wasting money on pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

Check out details and registration information for Buzz Camp here.

The Secret to Successful Wall Street Investing - Run from the Herd & Laugh A Lot

What a year it has been for the economy! Barring an extraordinary recovery today, it looks like major US stock indexes will close nearly 40% lower than they were on 1/1/08 - the biggest yearly decline since the 1930s.

If you're like me, you might be wondering what to do with your dwindling 401(k) or other funds tied up in the stock market. While it's tempting to pull out of the stock market entirely based on all the bad news you're hearing from the media and your friends, Bill Bernstein, neurologist and famous economic theorist, would likely suggest that you don't fall victim to the herd mentality of stock naysers. In fact, in this brilliant interview on NPR's Planet Money podcast series, he eloquently articulates why the best time to invest is oftentimes when things look the most grim and word of mouth suggests that you should pull your money out of the stock market.

May 2009 bring your success in your all your business and personal endeavors! And, regardless of how down you may feel, remember to laugh a lot in the coming year since it will likely help you live longer and happier.

My Buzz Marketing Video in High Quality on YouTube & the Future of Online Videos for Companies Seeking Buzz

A few months ago, my friend and client Anthony Sandberg at OCSC Sailing let me use his beatiful club room in the Berkeley Marina overlooking San Francisco Bay to give a two-hour seminar on "Galvanizing Your Business with Buzz." Max Fancher, the owner of Maximize Video Productions, shot and edited the below clip using two high definition cameras. If you're looking for somebody to shoot your corporate video, I highly recommend Max for his creativity, professionalism, and reasonable pricing. You can check out his work here.

If you have a high-speed connection to the Internent, you'll note that the image quality of the below is much better than what you've typically seen on YouTube. Although it has not been widely announced, YouTube now allows the uploading of high quality video. If you're interested in seeing the difference between standard and high quality video as well as how to watch or upload high quality video on YouTube's website, check out this excellent post on Jimmy Ruska's blog.

Small companies, which can't afford television advertising, now have a tremendous opportunity to create buzz for their businesses posting high quality videos to YouTube. Blendtec, a small commercial blender company based in Utah received more millions of views of its YouTube videos (all in low definition) and increased sales 43% in less than a year (see this article in The Wall Street Journal for details). I'm sure that the advent of high quality video on YouTube means that there will be a lot more success stories like Blendtec since YouTube's already huge audience is bound to increase now that watching online videos doesn't mean putting up with grainy images.

No Recession in Word of Mouth Marketing Spending

Thanks to the outstanding free newsletter that I receive from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, I learned that according to a new study  from PQ Media, spending on alternative media, which word of mouth marketing is a part of, is expected to continue to grow in 2008, in spite of a slowing economy. Alternative media spending grew 22.0% to $73.43 billion in 2007, according to PQ Media's research. Spending is projected to grow 20.2% to $88.24 billion in 2008.

Blogging for Business - Do You Agree with BusinessWeek Magazine?

In May 2005, BusinessWeek Magazine did one of the first cover stories on the blogging phenomenon. Last week, they published an interesting update of that piece in a blogging style with lots of active links. It's worth reading to see an important media outlet's take on on the future of blogging. BusinessWeek is bullish on blogging and social media as a tool for business. In fact, in the piece, they announced a BusinessWeek blog called Blogspotting which provides an interesting take on how cutting-edge technologies are changing business and society.

I've been blogging since January 2005 and my blog visitors now far exceeds my website audience since Google ranks blog posts much higher than website content. For instance, you'll find this blog in the top ten search results in Google under "publicity stunts"  while my website is invisible in this search even thought I talk about publicity stunts. 

While I've only landed one client who came to the blog first, the blog has proven to be an excellent way to show  prospects how I think. And, I know that a few clients have chosen my services over competitors since they identify with my creative word of mouth marketing approach over traditional advertising. If you're a blogger, I would be curious to know how blogging has helped grow your business. What have  you done to make blogging an effective business building tool?

Why You Should Place a Welcome Video Link on Your Company's Home Page in 2008

According to a recent article in the excellent online newsletter of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, Horowitz Associates released a report on "Broadband Content and Services 2007"  stating that six out of ten internet users download or watch video content on a weekly basis, and 86% say they view video at least once per month. News and user-generated videos top the lists of what internet users are watching.

In 2007, we helped three of our clients (Barbara Llewellyn Catering & Event Planning, STORViNO, and Bavarian Professionals) create welcome videos to meeting the growing demand for online video. The video portion of their websites have become quite popular and confirm the popularity of video that the Horowitz Associates report found.

Here are six keys for a successful welcome video:

1. Highlight the video prominently on the home page.
2. Tell a compelling story.
3. Focus on the entrepreneur and his or her values since people like buying from people they like.
4. Use interesting footage of the business in action while the business owner speaks.
5. Include customers talking about why they buy.
6. Be brief  (effective welcome videos are usually one to three minutes long).

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you're lucky to have a great company that specializes in online video. For all the aforementioned videos we created for our clients in 2007, we partnered with Max Fancher of Maximize Video Productions. Max is one of the most creative and conscientious professionals with whom I've worked and enjoys my highest recommendation. His other customers are equally enthusiastic.

Brandweek Says Future of Word of Mouth Marketing Is Bright But Watch Out for Excess

Eric Newman at Brandweek has an interesting article about the growth of word of mouth marketing. In 2007, he noted that companies will spend $1.3 billion on WOM marketing, up almost 33% from $981 million in 2006. He quotes various pundits who anticipate that spending will continue growing at a rapid pace in 2008.

As a word of mouth marketing practitioner, I'm satisfied that my field is doing well. However, I  have some concerns that the power of word of mouth marketing might be negatively impacted if marketers try to control it so closely that consumers doubt the credibility of the messages that they hear.  Rather than obsessing about messages to communicate, all companies should realize that their best way to manage buzz is to ensure that their products and services are of the highest quality. Then, it makes sense to reach out to existing customers creatively to let them know that their buzz is both appreciated and necessary for the company's continued success.

Word of Mouth is Growing Exponentially as a Marketing Activity and Consumer Influence

Recently, a friend sent me me a few interesting stats regarding word of mouth marketing that I found quite enlightening. According to PQ Media, word of mouth marketing jumped 35.9% in 2006 to $981 million, and its expected to climb at a compound annual rate of 30.4% in the 2006-2011 period to $3.7 billion. Keller Fay Group found  that Americans engage in nearly 3.5 billion (!) brand-related conversations (that is, people talking about specific companies, products or services) per day, and 80% of all people trust recommendations from family, friends, and "influential" persons over all other forms of marketing and advertising.

In other words, you can be certain that people are talking about your company and what they have to say has a huge impact on your success. What are you doing to make sure that that customer buzz is positive?

Interesting Word-of-Mouth Marketing Study

Earlier today, BoldMouth and Osterman Research published an interesting study on word-of-mouth marketing. You can download a complimentary PDF copy of "Perceptions, Practices and Ethics in Word-0f-Mouth Marketing at this link.

“The goal of the study is to provide organizations interested in, or even intimidated by, word-of-mouth campaigns with data and guidance designed to help them integrate this exciting strategy into their marketing and media plans,” noted BoldMouth CEO Todd Tweedy.

Until now, the bulk of published research on WOM has been piecemeal, or appeared as a small section of a more general survey, or was conducted too long ago to still be useful. Given the rapid changes in the marketplace, not to mention recent industry buzz around artificially engineered viral marketing (e.g., incentivized agents) organizations needed a comprehensive view of this emerging industry.

Nevertheless, a cursory review of the data from BoldMouth’s study, Perceptions, Practices & Ethics in Word-of-Mouth Marketing uncovers some interesting findings:

• A second wave of organizations appear to be waiting on the sidelines, preparing for the right moment to launch WOM efforts: 34.7% of study participants stated that they plan to use WOM marketing, which could expand the industry to the realm of more than one billion dollars in activity.
• Nearly 90% (89.9%) of all study participants noted that WOM was ethical. 
• Based on campaign examples provided by 24.6% of survey participants it appears as if organizations have a “devotion to promotion” bias when it comes to WOM.
• 51.2% of organizations are unable to track performance and 20.9% of organizations lack in-house talent to properly manage WOM campaigns.
• 65% of respondents noting they don’t have a WOM plan or are in the process of creating one, it’s likely that their organizations may have been relegating WOM to only support tactical marketing duties.
• • Nearly 64% of all survey respondents noted that WOM is either “very important” or “extremely important” to their overall marketing plans.
• Close to 60% of all respondents noted that they never use outside experts. This reliance on in-house talent can lead to confusion over campaign success metrics and contribute to future barriers to secure adequate campaign budgets.
• Face-to-face communications received the highest WOM effectiveness rating (86% or “extremely effective”), however, when online WOM marketing strategies are combined, this aggregated category of responses under the heading of Online WOM Marketing Strategies suggest as high, if not a higher, cumulative effectiveness rating than face-to-face communications.

Tweedy noted that, “The lack of more widespread attention to planning implies that a systematic approach to WOM marketing does not exist. Perhaps the greatest risk to not having a WOM plan in place is how organizations will deal with the likelihood of negative word-of-mouth. Based on study data, we believe the percentage of organizations that note “criticism from customers about campaigns” (7%) as a problem is likely to increase over the next twelve months as more organizations experiment with WOM.”