Branding Archives - Page 18 of 21

19Oct 2009 by Bob Cargill

GM’s Satisfaction Guarantee Offer: Good Faith, Great Marketing

Advertising, Branding, Direct Marketing, Marketing

I can't tell you how happy I was to hear that General Motors was giving customers (specifically, "eligible buyers" of new Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac vehicles) a 60-day satisfaction guarantee. Personally, I believe every company should be willing to go to such lengths in order to reassure prospective customers that they will meet, if not exceed, their expectations -- even if it means the possibility of doling out refunds to those who might be dissatisfied. A guarantee is a strong demonstration of good faith. Of course, the direct marketer in me also knows just how much a guarantee can lift response rates and, ultimately, sales. As I wrote here... ...a strong guarantee will go a long way toward mitigating any concerns your constituents may have about buying your products or services. In fact, when I had my own…

12Oct 2009 by Bob Cargill

Inbound Marketing Summit Boston (’09): The Best Conference I Never Attended

Blogging, Branding, Facebook, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Twitter

While I was fortunate enough to attend the Inbound Marketing Summit in Boston a year ago, I wasn’t able to attend this social media extravaganza here this time around... ...but I can tell you for a fact that it was the best conference I never attended. Yes, thanks to the live, exhaustive coverage of this two-day event by a slew of those in attendance via Twitter and many timely reports filed on other social media platforms (blogs, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, etc.), I don’t feel like I missed much of anything. Okay, so I didn't get the opportunity to network with my colleagues face-to-face, shake their hands and exchange business cards, but I definitely got the gist of pretty much all the presentations in snippets and headlines, video clips and sound bites. Starting with…

22Sep 2009 by Bob Cargill

Social Media: That’s What I’m Talking About

Blogging, Branding, Facebook, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Twitter

In the next eight days, I'll be giving three different presentations on social media, each of which I hope will be as transformative to my audience as some of the first talks I attended on the subject were to me. I’m a lifelong direct marketer, a copywriter by trade, but as I've said time and again, I believe strongly that those of us who can leverage social media technologies and tools to build mutually-beneficial relationships with colleagues, clients, customers, connections, friends and fans will be much more successful amidst this new communications era. Of course, given the confidence I have in social media, you can only imagine how much I enjoy sharing what I know about it with others, helping people harness the awesome power of blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the like. It's hard work.…

16Sep 2009 by Bob Cargill

Blog Post on Video: Who Moved My Customers?

Advertising, Blogging, Branding, Cause-Related Marketing, Client Service, Copywriting, Direct Marketing, Facebook, Fundraising, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Twitter

To say that marketing has changed in the last few years would be to put it quite mildly. Marketing has been rocked, shaken, stirred, knocked for a loop and turned completely upside down not just by the Internet, but by the emergence of social media as an informational, educational and conversational platform leveraged by the masses. Watch this short video and learn what to do about it before it's too late... This “blog post on video” was recorded on September 13, 2009 on Old Connecticut Path (overlooking the Massachusetts Turnpike) in Framingham, MA. It’s an adaptation of a post I wrote earlier this year called “Who Moved My Customers,” which you can read in its entirety here.

08Sep 2009 by Bob Cargill

How to Educate, Entertain and Engage People with Photo Marketing

Branding, Cause-Related Marketing, Direct Marketing, Fundraising, Marketing, Social Media

When I took my oldest son, Scott, 13, to see a rock concert at the Comcast Center (Mansfield, MA) recently, I knew we were going to have a great time. But I had no idea I’d be one of many getting a crash course in HPV (human papillomavirus) and the diseases it causes, including cervical cancer. But in addition to giving us pictures to commemorate the occasion, that’s what Merck and Co., the maker of GARDASIL, a cervical cancer vaccine, gave me and a throng of other willing participants. I was glad to get a souvenir photo with my son, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn more about HPV in the process -- and, consequently, given an opportunity to help spread the word here on my own blog. This was the…

31Aug 2009 by Bob Cargill

Blog Post on Video: The Three A’s of Social Media Branding

Blogging, Branding, Facebook, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Twitter

What's a social media practitioner to do in order to be heard loud and clear above the din of so much online activity? How do you as a marketer or a PR pro or perhaps even an intern who's been hired to build a constituency of friends, fans and followers command attention and respect for the brand you represent? Well, take it from a practitioner of another kind, a neighbor of mine who just happens to be a pediatrician, and be mindful of the three A's -- Ability, Affability and Availability. This “blog post on video" was recorded on August 16, 2009 at the Barron Fishing Access Site on Puffer Pond at the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge. It's an adaptation of a post I wrote earlier this year called “The…

27Aug 2009 by Bob Cargill

Blog Post on Video: Five Questions to Ask Yourself about Social Media

Advertising, Blogging, Branding, Facebook, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Twitter

Before you decide to dip your toes in social media, take just a few minutes to answer the five questions asked in this short video that I recently recorded (with the help of my wife, Barbara, and two sons, Scott and Ben) during the Cargill family vacation on the island of Martha's Vineyard. If you can answer yes to at least a few of these questions, then you’re in a pretty good place, a position from which you can at least begin to immerse yourself in such relatively uncharted waters as the blogosphere, the Twitterverse, Facebook and the like. This "blog post on video," by the way, is an adaptation of a post I wrote earlier this year called "Five Important Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Use Social Media," which you…

18Aug 2009 by Bob Cargill

Who Moved My Customers?

Advertising, Blogging, Branding, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media

To say that marketing has changed in the last few years would be to put it quite mildly. Marketing has been rocked, shaken, stirred, knocked for a loop and turned completely upside down not just by the Internet, but by the emergence of social media as an informational, educational and conversational platform leveraged by the masses. The authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto had it right when they said, among other things, that… “There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.” The cold, hard facts say that customers are simply not where they were as recently as the turn of this century...they're not waiting for the mail, reading the newspaper,…

10Aug 2009 by Bob Cargill

Social Media is a Team Sport, Not a Solo Act

Advertising, Blogging, Branding, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media

As someone who spends the better part of his days – and nights, too – either reading about, talking about or working with social media, I can speak from experience when I say that as much fun as it is to spend so much time on blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other such online communications platforms, to make that time pay off is no easy task. It’s true. Given the cacophony of content that’s being disseminated across the social web these days, anyone on the front line of their brand’s social media efforts knows they have their work cut out for them if they expect to command attention, engage constituents and win friends, fans and followers. Not only does a social media practitioner need to be on call practically…

Category: Branding