I learned in 2007

This is my 50^th article which is interesting to me because it coincides with the 100^th comment on my blog. And it coincides with the end of year 2007 which held a lot of great experiences for me on the personal level.

Back when I started my blog in July this year, I wrote an article titled: “I learned – 2006“. I will tell you one little secret of mine; all through the year when I write my diaries I keep little notes about what I learned in special occasions. I summed it up for you in 2006 and here we go for the 2007.

A bad advertisement

 

I don’t think that there is a certain guideline or technique to make a good advertisement. For me any advertisement is good enough as long as it is innovative, descriptive, targeted and in line with the company’s culture and personality.

I saw a TV advertisement today for a “certain” bank. It was based on close shots of roses and flowers emoting in a lovely way were some sentences like: “we do everything to satisfy our customer” and “perfection is what we mostly care about” came through. And at the end the logo and the name of the bank appears.

I am giving my self the privilege to criticize some of the aspects of this ad:

Customer loyalty programs

“Corporations usually spend much time and resources to gain a new customer. In fact, the real work actually begins when you gain the new customer.”

You most probably heard about the customer life-time value (that is the real long term value of a customer taking into account the nature of his sales, timely evolution, potential referrals, and the cost of gaining a new customer).

E-Commerce and Marketing Dictionary of Terms

This is an interesting and a respectful effort to define certain terms of E-commerce and Marketing by Alex Brown

Here’s the link: http://www.udel.edu/alex/dictionary.html

Do you speak the same language?

You rarely find companies who think about giving a consistent message about its services and a unified quality service to its customers.

In fact, I am sorry; too many companies think that they are giving a consistent message to their customers. Many marketer and managing directors think that uniformity can be reached by: uniforms, unified office design, pre-set disciplines and procedures.

Of course, those factors are important especially in certain service industries but there is one important factor to be considered: the culture.

The reality sense

I always remember the sense of reality when I see people applying theories and practices which they learned in collage or read in a book. Most of the time I see those people drowned in a world of their own trying to establish and enforce their rules on the real world.

We’ve seen a lot of marketers creating a “bad perception” or even a “bad publicity” because they didn’t study the social impact of a certain campaign. We’ve seen politicians waging wars because they thought it was the right thing to do (no better example than the Bush administration).

Employees: Your primary Evangelists

“Evangelist” is a term used in religion to designate true believers who try to persuade people to join their religion (mainly Christian) or, as well, any of the four writes of the bible. In the world of business, customers who are truly influenced by the culture of a brand, adopting it, carrying and defending its message in the community are called evangelists.

Think about your friend who brags about the Apple iPod and keeps criticizing other products. A neighbor so much addicted to his mini-cooper or a business associate who only flies on the friendly skies of Austrian Airlines. Those are “evangelists” who would adopt the brand as their own and spread its message to all they know.

Just Perfect vs. the natural effect

I was reading a blog by Paul Williams  a regular blogger on the Daily Fix  titled “Do You Flemish?“.

To “flemish” – as he described – is to coil the loose end of the lines (ropes) used when boating.

His advice was to observe the little details when performing business as those little things make a difference. And flemishing (or paying attention details) will reflect positively on the brand.

Can you give me a discount?

The other day, I went to a shop to buy a new tie. This is a very fancy shop and it’s well known with the finest ties ever. It was this period of the year when everything was on sale and the whole market was giving 30 to 60 percent discount. But this place was the only one with no sale at all.

One-Child slogan:

China cleaned up most of its one child slogans to replace them with a list of “190 acceptable slogans”. One of the slogans to be removed says: “one more baby means one more tomb.” They think that slogans like this one are harming the image of the policy in place for more than 25 years now and strictly followed all over the country. They said it’s an effort to win more understanding to the country’s population control policy.