marketing mistakes
Bad e-mail marketing. (What is it that you do again?)
My friend - and Opinionated Marketer Emeritus - John Whiteside just forwarded me a prospecting e-mail he’d received.
I’m not going to give things away here - who wants to embarrass an eager young sales guy just trying to make a buck. (And for all we know, his approach may be very successful. Just not when [...]
Quality is job one
Over on Pink Slip, my main blog, I clicked through on a recent comment to the URL. I did so out of curiosity,even though I knew that the comment was not genuine, but was just there for the possibility of stirring up some business. (Spam-mish, but not quite spam.)
Anyway, when I got to the website, [...]
Word of warning
A colleague recently attended the SIFMA (securities industry) show in New York. He was standing in front of an empty 10 by 10, when he was approached by a roaming, looking-for-work consultant who told him, “You need marketing help, and I can provide it.” She had assumed that he worked for the outfit which had [...]
Ask and you shall receive (mostly). Don’t ask and you might tick someone off.
A while back, I got minor-ly embroiled in a little “situation” with a customer of one of my clients.
Here’s the story:
As part of my work for this client, I have frequent conversations with customers. Someone in the marketing group, whom I don’t usually work with, let me know that she was planning on using [...]
Let’s not talk about politics or religion, shall we?
I was watching Keith Olbermann the other night (so I guess I’m kind of talking about politics….), and he had a bit on a Burger King franchisee in Tennessee that had been displaying a rather provocative sign in front of their stores.
I googled around and found the original story (by Chris Davis) in the Memphis [...]
More seize the moment marketing from Avaya
A few weeks ago, I blogged about a campaign from Avaya that suggested that using VoIP could recession proof your company.
As I noted in my post, I’m all in favor of capitalizing on things that are happening in the real world if your products and services can actually do something about them. (Gosh, I [...]
Is this any way to treat a customer?
On Saturday, I got cold-called from someone at Fidelity, wanting to let me know that they would be happy to discuss my portfolio strategy, invite me to a seminar, whatever-whatever. (Actually, what I’d really like them to do for me is instantaneously re-set my IRA to where it was a year ago, but that ain’t [...]
Missed Marketing Opportunity for Quaker Mini Delights
Someone’s always giving out some sort of free sample or another in downtown Boston: gum, sports drinks, candy, snacks. Most days, I’m not far from Quincy Market, a main tourist attraction, and - especially in good weather - there are often freebies to be had. The other day, I was offered a free package of [...]
Recession-Proof your company with VoIP? Come now, marketers, there’s really no need to lie…
I’m all in favor of situational marketing, in which you take advantage (within reason) of whatever circumstances are floating around out there. Headline news, sporting events, seasonal doings, and ongoing situations like the current knock-down/drag-out recession.
in fact, marketers should be explaining how their goods and services can help their customers survive hard economic times. Contributions [...]
Download annoyances
I suppose I’m being a bit of a crank here, but I’ve been doing a lot of market research work lately, which means I’ve been roaming around the web grabbing documents of interest here and there. Which means I’ve been filling out a lot of forms so that I can download white papers, data sheets, [...]
