THINKing

Remember, You Are Naked Online

Here in the Charlotte area a number of teachers are in danger of losing their jobs because of online indiscretions. They posted objectionable items in their Facebook accounts. Last time I checked Facebook was the fifth most visited site on the web with millions of visitors each day.

Did these teachers not know that? Anyone can see what you are saying. When you utilize social media, you are naked online for all to see. If they are that dumb, should they be teaching our children?

I’ve seen many – mostly younger – people airing out too much online. Savvy HR people Google candidates before hiring them. How would you look in an HR search?

This gets back to personal branding, a topic on which I’ve written a lot. A brand rests on truth, not on a thin veneer of calculated actions. So, like any good brand, you must nurture and maintain your reputation. All of your actions – offline and online – add up to form your personal brand. As Warren Buffett said,

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you will do things differently.

It’s a little late for the Charlotte, NC teachers to heed that advice or to read my white paper on personal branding. But you may want to give it a whirl.

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Email: It’s Not Dead. It Says It’s Not Dead.

Fans of Monty Python and The Holy Grail will recognize the headline allusion above. According to the latest poll by SubscriberMail, email is not dead. No, really.

As the economy continues to struggle, it is not surprising that email marketers are often called on to do more with less. What is surprising is that 52 percent of email marketers who participated in this March 2008 study reported improved results over the previous twelve months. Email marketers attributed the improvements to optimizing email lists; employing email marketing best practices; improving content, email layouts and creative; and improving message relevancy.

A majority of marketers surveyed by Subscribermail indicate improvements in email performance. Fifty-two percent report slight to significant improvements in their performance, while two percent say their performance is off significantly.

Top obstacles to success, according to survey respondents are:

Delivery – 12 percent

Swamped inboxes – 12 percent

Time/resources – 12 percent

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Random Links – 7/16/2008

If you are marketing at C-level, you know how hard it is to reach the CEO. Good advice here on how to break through the corporate defenses to reach the CEO.

Is your blog a networking tool? Jennifer Gniadecki from Everyday Networker takes on the topic.

When old school brands like Sears begin embracing a marketing technique, its time has come. Read about the retailer’s foray into social media.

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Cheaper To Keep

You’ve heard it all before when it comes to stats about customer retention. Some say that acquiring a customer costs five to 10 times more than retaining one. Repeat customers spend, on average, 67 percent more. After 10 purchases a customer has referred as many as seven other people. I’m not sure about the math, but I am sure that the underlying premise is correct: keeping existing customers is cheaper than getting new ones.

So, if your focus is on acquiring new customers instead of keeping the ones you have, you are off the mark. Here are a few thoughts on customer retention.

- Ask. New York Mayor Ed Koch was famous for asking “How am I doing?” He always knew where he stood, even if he wasn’t always happy about the answer. So, survey your customers about their likes and dislikes. Then, follow through with the information you receive.

- Profile. Learn as much as you can about your customers and then do something with that information to show them that you value them. Find out what makes a “best” customer and then put programs in place to move more of your customers into this category.

- Reward. Humans like to be treated as if they are special, and they will return to businesses where they have had these positive experiences. Reward them with special deals, or just pay a little more attention to them. In this era of digital communication, just sending a hand-written note gets you major points.

New business is exciting, I’ll admit. But it is the clients you have that will bring you the most success over the long run. Don’t spend five to 10 times more to bring in that new customer. Instead, invest a fraction of that to keep your customers coming back and referring similar “best” customers.

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Great Employees = Happy Consumers

Companies spend millions of dollars each year identifying their brand, and then communicating their brand promise through various media. Employees are the primary “media” in the majority of brand contacts. Raise your hand if you think a majority of your employees understand your brand promise well enough to live it and articulate it clearly.

I don’t see many hands up.

Tons of research has been done on this subject. Typically, the results indicate that more than 75% of employees are achieving much less and feeling far less enthusiastic about their work than they could be. One Gallup study suggests that if all your employees were “fully engaged,” your customers would be 70% more loyal, your turnover would drop by 70%, and your profits would jump 40%. In a 2006 study, Gallup reports that, “the lower productivity of actively disengaged workers costs the US economy about $328 billion.”

Research also has found that consumers who felt fast food restaurant employees did a great job were five to six times more likely to come back to that brand. At banks where employees stood out, the customer was six to 20 times more likely to continue the relationship.

Additionally, great employees also tend to engender “passionate” customers. For example, customers who praised store-level associates were 16 times more likely to be passionate about the retailer’s brand.

My analogy is this: drop a pebble into a pond and the largest splash occurs at the point of contact and then radiates outward in circles. The point of contact, from a branding perspective, is inside your company. Get employees on board from an emotional perspective and they carry their passion out to the next circle: customers. Passionate customers carry it beyond to prospects through word-of-mouth.

Effectively communicate your brand position with your employees, and unleash some passionate financial results.

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