Archive for June, 2008
Product Requirements: How to Figure Out What to Put in the Stew
Even though it’s often a no-win situation, I’ve always enjoyed the process of coming up with product requirements. I really like taking all those disparate threads and coming up what will be in the next mix.
Things have changed, of course, since I was establishing product requirements. With the development tools available, release cycles, at least [...]
Vacation (or, what would your mother Twitter?)
Summer is here. Up north in the land of my childhood, that means hot - sometimes really hot - days giving way to cool evening. Here in Houston it means that weather is over and we’re in a state of permanent liquid air. And thoughts turn, of course, to vacation.
I’ve been on vacation lately, but [...]
Social/broadcast media
Mack Collier at MarketingProfs questioned the habit of some - including social media pros - of using media like Twitter to announce new blog posts, and not much else:
Lately I’ve been seeing a troubling trend on some blogs, and especially on Twitter. What I’m noticing is that some well-known and established players in the social [...]
Marketing the Gardner Museum
There was a fun article in the Boston Globe the other day on a novel attempt to market the Gardner Museum. For those not familiar with “Mrs. Jack” or her Museum, Isabella Stewart Gardner was a late 19th/early 20th century Boston grande dame who, with her husband, traveled extensively - and collected all sorts of [...]
Social media and B2B marketing
I’ve heard lots of people say that they understand why B2C marketers would use social media, but don’t see the fit for B2B. If you think that, go read what Shel Holtz says on the subject:
Social media actually makes more sense in B-to-B companies than business-to-consumer firms.
…
The benefits of social media to B-to-B companies is [...]
Walk a Mile in My Shoes
Over on the Trusted Advisor, Charlie Green had a very interesting post last week entitled “A Marketing Company that Really Gets It On Trust.” In his article, Charlie talks about the marketing firm Unit7, with a special shout out to one particular campaign:
… on Type 2 Diabetes…They offered the entire office’s staff a chance to [...]
TXU Energy: a dank, unpleasant pit of bad service
We’ve written about how customer service is part of your marketing, and how bad service can undo all the great marketing in the world. Yesterday I came across a prime example of this from TXU Energy, an electricity reseller here in Texas (and a pretty large one).
TXU does lots and lots of advertising. Before I [...]
Eurostar’s unwanted mascots
Eurostar, which runs the trains through the Channel Tunnel between London and Paris, is using some cute dogs in their marketing. Who doesn’t like cute dogs? I’m a sucker for them (though I’d take the bulldog over the poodle, thanks):
There’s just one problem with these cute mutt mascots, though. If you decide to arrange a [...]
Effective Product Marketing Rule #12
This is the twelfth (and final) in a series of posts on Pragmatic Marketing’s Effective Product Marketing Rules.
Effective Product Marketing Rule #12: Tell your sales people about buyer personas and they will listen to you. Build tools by buyer persona and they will use them.
Over the years, I’ve come to believe that there is an [...]
Hold the ads, please
David Reich at My 2 Cents wrote about ads that play while you’re on hold:
Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal tells the story. Callers to customer service, while waiting for the next available representative, are seen as a huge captive audience. More than 320 million calls a month and growing, says one of the companies [...]
