Marketing

Business Blogs and Customer Connectivity

WebProNews has an article titled Business Blogs and Customer Connectivity, which looks at the characteristics of sucessful business blogs. It says that many of the best "b-blogs" (business blogs) provide their readers with a look at the:

  1. Company represented.
  2. Individual heading that company.
  3. News that affects the company and its customers.
  4. Links that may be beneficial to the customers.
  5. Personality behind the logo.

The "Six P's" of Email Newsletters

Rolf Anweiler of Brand Republic says that newsletters are the most widely distributed and most established form of email marketing and an indispensable part of the communications strategy for many companies. He says that the six important factors for implementing a successful email newsletter are:

  • PLACE How the newsletter is integrated into a website
  • PROCESS How easy is it to subscribe
  • PERMISSION Are data protection regulations being adhered to and how is permission gained from the subscriber?
  • PERIODICITY Is the timing and frequency of the newsletter right?
  • PERSONALISATION Is it tailored to the interests of the reader?
  • PRESENTATION How good is the newsletter design and layout?

Screaming Users Considered Good

Edvard Much's 'The Scream'I'm not sure how I'd react if a user of something I'd developed came up to me and called it "the most white male fascist tool I’ve ever had the misfortune to use."

Dan Russell, one of the writers at Creating Passionate Users did the right thing when it happened to him. He took a deep breath and asked "And what made you feel this way?"

It may not be pleasant to deal with a customer who's all fired up about your product or service for the wrong reasons, but as the article Screaming Users Considered Good points out, you can learn a lot from users who are struggling with it, don't "get it" or have had a strong negative reaction to it.

A Marketing Lesson from Paris Hilton

Paris Hilton

"If Madonna was Marketing 1.0," says the entry in the blog Chartreuse, "then Paris Hilton is Marketing 2.0. She’s a real life version of what value is and how it is created today. Every web developer should pay attention to her."

The full story is at the article Why Paris Hilton is Famous (Or Understanding Value in a Post-Madonna World).