Counting in Chinese

With reliable data hard to come by, creating a winning marketing formula for China can be a head-scratching exercise.

Editor’s Note: this is the first article in a special report on China. I also recommend the article, “It’s Not What You Know…” and the PDF “Not All Markets Are Created Equal”

The Picture of Brand Health

A brand scorecard can fill a big gap in your marketing dashboard-but only if you present the brand as an asset in terms the CFO can understand.

Slice of Life

RBC Royal Bank has opened a window on the unmet needs of its customers-and grown its market share-using segmentation.

More Power, More Peril

The influence of the top marketing chief in many organizations is increasing-news that no doubt will warm the hearts of CMOs everywhere who’ve been craving a seat at the executive management table.

But with that rising profile comes a much larger and potentially more daunting set of challenges. No longer is the CMO focused solely on driving the next media buy or PR campaign. Our survey … [ Read more ]

Three Roads to Riches

Why the power of integrated search engine strategies is greater than the sum of their parts.

The Need for Leads

Media reps love to talk about impressions and brand interactions. So what does a direct marketer have to do to get a hard sales lead instead of a soft impression?

Making Waves

P&G’s Tremor division claims to have cracked the code on measurable word of mouth using a concoction of old metrics, new approaches and a heavy dose of secret sauce.

Larry Selden, Alice Dragoon

For convenience, companies organized along product lines often segment customers by what they buy. This approach, however, risks alienating customers in two ways: Customers who happen to be in more than one segment get bombarded with multiple, uncoordinated offers. And big spenders in one product category who start buying in a second category are justifiably miffed if they’re treated as strangers.

Stargazing

The celebrity endorsement, driven more by gut feel than hard data, remains a bit of a black box for ROI-focused marketers.

Samar Farah

Where someone else might assume a personal frustration is just that-individual and quirky-innovators assume that if they feel that way, then others must too. Recognizing this-and then acting on it-is part of the innovative impulse.

Connect the Dots

How to tie marketing metrics to financial outcomes.

Time to Reengineer Your Marketing Model

Traditional investment strategies are in trouble. Are you ready to challenge the status quo?

Prophet-ability

Managing your marketing dollars means more than strategic positioning. To build your bottom line, you’ll need to predict the value of your investments.

Seth Godin

Marketers profit because consumers buy what they want, not what they need. Needs are practical and objective, wants are irrational and subjective. And no matter what you sell-and whether you sell it to businesses or consumers-the path to profitable growth is in satisfying wants, not needs. (Of course, your product must really satisfy those wants, not just pretend to!)

Seth Godin

Truly great stories succeed because they are able to capture the imagination of large or important audiences.

A great story is true. Not true because it’s factual, but true because it’s consistent and authentic. Consumers are too good at sniffing out inconsistencies for a marketer to get away with a story that’s just slapped on.

Great stories make a promise. They promise fun or money, safety … [ Read more ]

Elana Anderson

Any traditional call center is measured in terms of cost: How long did the customer have to wait? How many calls went through the call center versus using self-service? How long was the average call? The challenge comes when you want to drive revenue out of the contact center. Those metrics get turned on their head. It takes time to sell to a customer. You’re … [ Read more ]

Extreme Makeover

In the fight against commoditization, companies are scrambling to create value-added services to protect their precious margins. But making the switch is easier said than done. To complete its metamorphosis, Dow Corning needed to transform the entire company.