Marketing

Sarah Worsham / Feb 17, 2009

Don't forget the Relationship in CRM

relationshipsolarikon Does your company have CRM (Customer Relationship Management)? CRM used to be about a business process of managing a relationship with a customer, but now it often just applies to a piece of software that stores customer names and some information about them. During this recession, there is an opportunity to actually form relationships with your customers. As Lee Odden from Online Marketing Blog says:

As companies decide where to invest their limited marketing resources, there is a distinct opportunity to focus on investing in relationships: with their customers, prospects, employees and business partners.

So instead of using your CRM to blast out targeted email campaigns, use CRM to form long-lasting relationships with your customers. Reach out to them and see if you can help. Companies and people who connect with their customers will be remembered much more than companies that just sent out lots of advertising. Best of all, building relationships is easy on the wallet – just takes a bit of your time.

(photo by “Solar ikon” @ Flickr CC)

Technorati tags: business, business strategy, crm, customer relationship management, customers, marketing, marketing strategy, online marketing, internet marketing

Sarah Worsham / Feb 16, 2009

Is Free Actually Valuable?

freelimbopoet One way to entice customers to try your product or service is by giving away a sample for free. This tactic is quite prevalent online with free e-books, free webinars, free slideshows, etc. But is free actually valuable?

On the one hand, putting a value of 0 on something may make it seem less valuabe to potential customers. Why are you willing to give it away? It must not be all that great. On the other hand, offering a free sample has become expected, especially for companies establishing themselves. As a new product or service, a reputation has not yet been developed and so potential customers have no where to turn to get an opinion about whether its worth buying.

I think free is a great way to give potential customers a risk-free taste of your products or services – and, as I said above, it is pretty much expected. However, I think what is given away should actually be valuable. Take a bit of time to provide useful information to your potential customers and instead of thinking of it as free, think of it as a trial.

(photo by Limbo Poet @ Flickr CC)

Technorati tags: business, business strategy, marketing, marketing strategy, strategy, internet marketing

Aaron Worsham / Feb 13, 2009

Is your brand 'Google Safe'?

There is a term we used to throw around the publishing desks back in the day. If we had a new branded product or publication we wanted to create, the first bullet point on the ToDo list was to find out if the name it was ‘Google Safe’. For us, ‘Google Safe’ meant the term or name or phrase or tagline was light on targeted search results in Google and was available for someone to make their own. I use the quotes there because, unaware at the time, Google was branding its own line of services and calling them Google Safe Browsing (who knew). The term stuck in my head since and I’m not sure what the the kids are calling it today but at least the concept is alive and well. The CEO of a web startup that will intentionally mispell an english word as their brand to find a niche in a crowded search market, that’s a woman who enjoys the path less chosen.

Good online branding is getting difficult. It has to be memorable, short, representative if possible, and it has to be somewhat available on Google. I was sitting down just today thinking of a good product name when I came up with some guidelines that at least helped.

Pick one word that speaks to your product, lets say Community, and another word that neither adds nor distracts from the first word. CommunityOne, CommunityPrime, CommunityNow
Prefix words like colors are easy to remember and can give your name a little separation from the pack. Sure you could call your wireless mini networking technology ‘tooth’ but ‘Bluetooth’ is so much cooler and more unique.
Locations make good Google Safe additions to names. Your town, your county, your street, your state can all help you find a unique name for your business that is easy to remember and representative as well
Numbers are popular with the online community. 37siganls, 43folders, 30helens.
So are strange animal combinations. RazorFrog, GlassFish, FireFox. Entire product releases for Ubuntu are renamed with an allerating combination of Adjective and Animal name: Gutsy Gibbon, Intrepid Ibex, Hardy Heron.
Of course, would be remise if I didn’t mention the trend Apple foisted upon us. Take a word, slap on a lower case letter in front, surround with rounded corners. iPod, iTouch, iMac, iGotNothing

I’m sure you can come up with better suggestions of how to pick the next great name.

Photo attributed to audreyjm529

Technorati tags: strategy, marketing, google, google safe, search engine optimization, seo, search engine marketing, sem

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