Word of Mouse in Action!
I am currently reading the Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing, a book by George Silverman, which I borrowed from the National Library. Fascinating stuff in there with some explanation of how one can make Word Of Mouth (WOM) marketing work.
Let me highlight two key learning points. First is the Buying Decision Process. Those who studied Marketing 101 may be familiar with this. The stages are as follows:
I came across this awesome blog on branding by the Blake Project which offers truckloads of fabulous advice and insights on the art and science of branding. This is probably one of the best blogs on marketing which I have seen. What’s great is that they do offer lots of free stuff too.
How does one measure brand equity? There are many ways to do it. Interbrand–Businessweek’s methodology is probably the most famous for listed companies, and many marketers are familiar with their Top 100 Global Brands.
I personally like the approach which Blake Project has adopted. According to them, there are five key attributes which drive customers’ brand insistence, namely:
Spotted this sign at a second-hand bookshop somewhere. It tells me a couple of things:
1) We are very pally with the men-in-blue so “you better watch out, you better not cry…”
Seth Godin, the master of all things marketing, shares some valuable lessons on how to make an impression with your powerpoints. I am definitely guilty of some of the worst trangressions (like bullet points) but I suppose some of these old habits die hard.
In particular, I like his 5 point list below:
More of Seth Godin’s post here.
Other than Seth, the other masters of the art of presenting are Steve Jobs (whose product launches are always spectacularly choreographed), Guy Kawasaki, Lawrence Lessig and of course the guru of all gurus Tom Peters. Most of the time, these masters do not have elaborate 20 point slides (Seth says bullets are for the NRA) with complicated charts and graphs. Simplicity, it seems, is the key to powerpoint success.
The best reference on how to create presentations that sizzle AND sell is Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds. Simply the best online reference on this subject matter. And its all free.
“For a while, it seemed that every conversation about companies interacting with bloggers fell back on the same few anecdotes. It was as if our economy were based on Dell and Kryptonite. For better or worse, that’s changed now. We’re seeing more examples of bloggers calling out companies, and all too often, the companies don’t understand the culture. Today it’s the National Pork Board.
Jennifer Laycock is a work-at-home mom and founder of The Lactivist, “a site that aims to promote breastfeeding through humor.” One of her activities is selling shirts with funny slogans at CafePress, and one of her designs—The Other White Milk—was too close to The Other White Meat® for the eat-more-pig crowd.
As alluded to earlier, something sinister is happening to our environment. Mankind’s multiple abuses – deforestation, overfishing, water and sea pollution, depleting fossil fuels and excessive carbon (greenhouse gas) emissions – have led to severe environmental degradation. More than 2,000 top environmental scientists have alluded that we are at the start of a major and irreversible climactic catastrophe.
Global warming (by as much as 6 degrees Celcius over the next 100 years), rising sea levels (up to 50 cm in the next century), shrinking tropical islands, melting glacial ice, and depleting of natural forest cover. These have affected entire communities and led to massive disasters in recent times like floods, mudslides, hurricanes, and numerous pollution related illnesses.
Are we safe here in Singapore? After all, we did escape from the brunt of it all in recent years.
Courtesy of www.singaporeflyer.com.sg
I followed with much interest the recent news on the Singapore Flyer and how corporate organisations are making a beeline to book it for their functions. It is certainly heartening to see it kick off to a flying start, especially in light of the recent demise of Crazy Horse Paris and Jurong Crocrodile Paradise. With Adval running it (a subsidiary of NTUC Club), and a highly experienced management team (some of whom I know personally), I believe that it will at least have enough horsepower to keep itself going for some time.
To sustain itself over the long haul however, the Singapore Flyer will need to constantly sharpen its saw and offer unique value to its customers. There are many giant ferris wheels around the world – the London Eye, the Eye on Malaysia, a proposed Giant Wheel in Berlin (2008), another in Las Vegas, and yet another in Shanghai (the Shanghai Star). If you count the smaller sized wheels, there are plenty more in cities like Osaka, Hokkaido, and even Bangkok’s Suan Lum Night Market!
Church of the Customer’s Ben McConnell pointed to this interesting bit of research by BIGresearch recently. Apparently, advertisers have been making all the wrong investments in mass media advertising when most people still relies on family and friends to give their recommendations on what to buy.
According to BIGresearch:
As more marketers seek to make media expenditures accountable to the bottom line growth of their company, the consumers in the survey don’t seem to be on the same page as advertising expenditures. When asked which media most influence their purchase decision for various product categories, consumers’ choices are rarely in line with advertisers expenditures.
I came across this interesting concept of 2000 bloggers which was started by Tino Buntic. The idea was to create a link to 2000 bloggers from anywhere and anytime and feature them on his blog. I spotted quite a few Singaporean bloggers in there, like Andrew Wee, Veron and eastcoastlife, as well as prominent blogeratis like Guy Kawasaki, Tom Peters, Robert Scoble and Seth Godin.
See who you can spot and have fun clicking on the faces. I hear that Tino is still looking for bloggers to link to, so go ahead and drop him a note here!
Brought the family to the Chinatown Light Up ceremony last night, amidst the drizzling rain, nursing Ethan’s raging fever (he insisted on going nonetheless), and the extraordinary crowds.
As usual, there were the fire crackers popping which ushered in the festivities, as well as the street lights. I found the accompanying reveberations and echoes rather eery – they reminded me of a warzone and sounded like multiple bullets firing away in the night. At certain critical periods, there were even low lying pyrotechnics which lit up the night sky.