Quality Service Marketing

Memo to Senior Management: Take Care of Your People

I found this great quote from Dr. Judith M. Bardwick:

“When people are perceived as a cost and not a resource, when they are treated as a liability and not an asset, when no one seems to know or care that they are there, they don’t work well, and they don’t stay.”

Who are these ‘people?’

They’re your employees … your contractors, vendors, and consultants … your partners … and ultimately your brand advocates or - depending on how you treated them - your brand adversaries.

New Book Integrates Marketing, PR and Social Media

Just released – Marketing Public Relations: A Marketer’s Approach to Public Relations and Social Media by Gaetan Giannini, a new textbook that covers a truly integrated approach to promotion using both new and traditional media.

Wait – a textbook? Why would I be excited about a textbook? Two reasons:

1. While the subject of public relations (PR) is usually taught in schools from either a communications or journalism perspective, this book covers PR from a marketing perspective. Gaetan, a former marketing exec who is now an assistant professor and department chair at Cedar Crest College, wrote the book because he was unable to find a suitable text that integrated current PR and marketing practice in the new media landscape.
2. It’s a great reference for business practitioners – those new to marketing and marketing generalists who know the value of PR but don’t apply it everyday.
   According to Gaetan, this book “recognizes the similarities between PR, word-of-mouth, and social networking media and creates a framework for constructing marketing strategies that incorporate these highly credible and cost-effective tools.”

The book explains current PR applications (“Non-Media Connectors and Word-of-Mouth”) and updates traditional PR practices (“The Press Kit and Press Release,” “Selling the Story,” and “Crisis Management”). It also features a full glossary (in addition to defining key terms throughout each chapter) and index.

The book is reasonably priced for a textbook - around $90. Quite a bargain for a business reference book considering the price of a costly PR mistake.

To learn more, check out Gaetan’s book-related blog on Marketing Public Relations.

New Workshop on Internal Branding and Internal Marketing

I’m really excited to be developing a new program with my colleague and internal branding expert, Debra Semans. We’re presenting Internal Branding and Internal Marketing: Strategic Integration for Market Leadership as part of AMA’s Spotlight Forum series (an “intense day focused on topics confronting marketers today”) in Houston on November 13, 2009.

Note: An earlier post comparing & contrasting internal marketing with internal branding is one of my most frequently visited posts in the five years I’ve been blogging.

In this new workshop, Debra and I will share insights and tips on how to make internal branding and internal marketing work respectively. We’ll also cover how elements of each can be integrated to better engage employees - the “face” of your brand and organization - to meet marketing and organizational goals.

The more I work on the program’s content, the more I realize how timely this topic is for marketing, HR, and business leaders dealing with these challenging times. It’s also an untimely topic in the sense that both internal marketing and internal branding should not be treated as the “strategy du jour.” Successful companies have been applying these approaches all along as an integral part of their organization culture and operations, not just an interim campaign.

Hope you’ll be able to join Debra and me in Houston in a few weeks for this exciting new learning event!

Help for Marketers Dealing with the "New Different"

My friend and marketing research colleague Chris Bonney has written a thought-provoking white paper, The View from the Front, in which he shares his impressions and suggestions for navigating what he calls the “New Different” marketplace.

As I’m highlighting just a few excerpts here, I encourage you to read the complete paper. Better yet, share it within your organization and use it to spark discussion, especially on how to compete successfully in the new year and beyond.

Advice for Marketers and Business Leaders

• “You can’t sit this recession out. Despite the obvious reasons for tightening your belt, this is not the time to be timid … Let your competitors sit this one out. Let them allow consumers to forget about them by not communicating regularly, or by taking ‘safer’ approaches in their products, pricing, and marketing communications. Market share you pick up now is going to reflect in your bottom line when you need it most.”
• “Stop playing the victim. Before long, someone’s going to make a breakthrough that’s going to put us all to shame. It’ll become obvious that while we were staying the course, whoever’s behind this breakthrough will have been working hard to figure out where the winds are and sail ahead. I don’t want to be embarrassed by this. Do you?”
• “You’ve still got to get close to the consumer [and] Get out. Ask Questions. Listen.You can only do so much of this by e-mail, Instant Message or Facebook or Twitter. You’ve got to get close and in a context where there’s time and safe space for the consumer to unwind, explain and give you the kind of context and color that tells you how to connect with them.”
• “You’ve got to constantly re-invent [and] Don’t kill the creatives. They can be found in every one of your departments if you’ll just let them loose to push the edges, test the limits, stretch the envelope and otherwise provoke you with new, scary ideas. Tempting as it may be to consider such people nonessential during tough times … they can be the sources of your future success.”

According to Chris,

“Perhaps the biggest challenge facing many organizations, and the most important thing you can do to successfully embrace the New Different is to learn to let go and be brave in developing new ideas, new products, new services and new ways of distributing your ideas, products, and services. Use the technologies of today. Respect the changing consumer perspective. And recognize that by the time you’ve done all this conditions will have probably changed again. That’s how it is these days.”

And I imagine that’s how it will be for quite a while.

Do It Yourself Marketing for Entrepreneurs

In the past several months, I’ve seen a tremendous increase in the number of new business filings listed in my local business journal. It’s no surprise, given the current economy. (Background: I started my business during the recession in the late 1980’s.) 

So for all new (and wannabe) entrepreneurs, here’s a great resource. Dana VanDen Heuvel (aka Marketing Savant) created a 30 day do-it-yourself marketing e-course for entrepreneurs. Dana posted the series earlier in the summer and has offered a complete e-course recap of the program’s marketing ideas and action items. Here’s a sample of the easy-to-digest content:

• Building your database (day 6)
• Engaging in meaningful (rather than mindless) marketing (day 10)
• Becoming “slightly famous” (day 23)

It’s also a great resource for long-time entrepreneurs who need a marketing boost.

Great Marketing Resources

To follow up my recent list of great business resources, here are additional links specifically for marketers and those interested in learning more about the profession.

Marketing Newsletters
Check out the Marketing Savant with its emphasis on thought leadership marketing by Dana VanDen Heuvel. Here’s the subscription link. (Note: Dana helped talk me into starting this blog four years ago.)

Marketing Profs Today, brought to you by those great folks at Marketing Profs, offers content for free and paid subscribers.

Marketing Training
AMA Spring Marketing Workshop, March 16-19, 2009. With its customizable format, you can choose to attend tutorial sessions in the areas of Customer Loyalty-Customer Commitment, Branding, Strategic Marketing, Relationship Marketing, and Sales Effectiveness.

This is the event where I present my internal marketing tutorial: Marketing from the Inside Out: Engaging Employees for Strategic Advantage.

AMA Marketing Boot Camp, March 24-25, 2009. I’m doubly excited about teaching this marketing fundamentals program hosted by the Rochester Chapter because I love sharing what marketing is all about plus I get to connect with my Rochester-based friends Yvonne DiVita, Sandra Beckwith, and Karin Choi.

For those who have completed the basic boot camp and want more specialized marketing training, check out the Marketing Planning Boot Camp and Branding Boot Camp.

"It's the Employees, Stupid!"

Here’s a depressing statistic: according to an online study of client-side marketers, only 20% of 198 respondents made sure that employees outside of the marketing department were kept informed of the company’s marketing strategy “all or most of the time.” A whopping 56% of the respondents kept employees informed “sometimes.”

Keeping employees in the loop

I found these stats in Don Schultz’s Marketing News column. As Don so aptly put it: “The marketing executives polled have the responsibility for planning and developing the marketing strategy but not the execution. That’s what the employees do. If only one in five even know what the strategy is, how can any organization hope to create a seamless, transparent, integrated brand experience for its customers?”

So Don created a slogan, “It’s the Employees, Stupid,” to help remind execs about the people who are ultimately responsible for delivering the brand experience to customers. He explained, “ … if the employees don’t know what the marketing strategy is, they will have a much harder time delivering on it, no matter what the [marketing] executives decide it is.”

Sometimes it’s not the employees who are clueless.

A New Year & Special Anniversary

Greetings in this New Year!  2008 is a special year for me as it marks the 20th Anniversary of my business, Quality Service Marketing.

I began Quality Service Marketing in 1988 for a number of reasons. Here are excerpts from my notes that year when I contemplated leaving my job in bank marketing. I wrote that I wanted:

• Less frustration in a corporate environment I was not happy with*
• More control over my career
• More opportunity for greater achievement
• More time and flexibility to be with my family.

*I also found this note: “Reminder: Yes, it really was that bad!”

Making the Big Leap

I weighed the pro’s and con’s of being self-employed (I’m not a risk-taker by nature), talked with my colleagues who had taken the plunge, and tried to figure out how I could start a business focused on internal marketing and services marketing. (Back then, most self-employed marketers specialized in advertising/marketing communications, public relations, or market research.)

My first deliverable was a service quality management development seminar. Over the past 20 years, my client work has evolved to include more marketing training and marketing/strategic planning facilitation – with an emphasis on employee-customer care through internal marketing – for nonprofit and for-profit service-based organizations.

Going out on my own 20 years ago was one of the best decisions I ever made, next to marrying my husband. Seriously, I couldn’t have done any of this without his love and encouragement. (Although he’s getting impatient waiting for the big bucks to pour in ... ).

Thanks, Michael. Thanks, also, to Jason (my son and primary source of tech support) and to my clients and colleagues, who continue to teach me so much.

Here’s to Quality Service Marketing’s next 20 years!

The Ultimate Gift Card: The Good Card

For personal and corporate holiday shopping, consider the ultimate gift card – The Good Card, a gift card for charity that allows the recipient to donate to his/her charity of choice. The Good Card is the brainchild of nonprofit Network for Good, the leading online charitable resource that’s approved by the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance.

Good Cards can be purchased online at Network for Good and can be sent via mail or email (the latter as an electronic gift card). The Good Card recipient goes to Network for Good’s website, selects his/her charity of choice from over one million charities registered in the U.S., and enters the donation amount using the code indicated on the card. Network for Good then sends to the donation to the chosen charity. And get this – 100% of the card’s value goes to the charity!

A wonderful gift from individuals and any-size business

Each card costs $5 plus the donation amount (ranging from $10 to $250). Both the donation and fee are tax deductible for the purchaser. (Remember, 100% of the donation amount goes to charity.)

For corporate gift-giving, companies can get logo placement on bulk orders of the physical cards for an additional charge. This unique charitable gift card allows a company to reinforce its philanthropic image without limiting its support to a single cause.

The Good Card - it’s the perfect gift suitable for anyone.

The Coffee Company Case: A Useful Brew

I found this great marketing case from the Branding Wire on Olivier Blanchard’s blog.

Anyone interested in learning more about marketing, including those who have attended the AMA Marketing Boot Camp sessions I teach for the American Marketing Association should check it out.

What I found most valuable about The Coffee Company Case are the questions that Olivier poses in his response. Ditto for Drew McLellan's response.

Putting on my marketing training/facilitating hat, here's what I suggest you do to get the most from this case: 1st, use it as part of a marketing staff exercise – discuss it collectively or in small groups (depending on how many employees want to participate). Then adapt & apply the questions within the context of your company’s situation.

Better put on another pot of brew ...you could be in for a stimulating and insightful discussion.