Tag: evangelist marketing

Transforming Critical Failure to Box Office Success

July 10, 2009 • Blog • 2 comments


Courtesy of wintan29

Like almost everyone else who doesn’t don a skirt, I have watched Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen recently. The action was fast, furious and catered specifically for hot-blooded males of any age. After all, gigantic alien robots and Megan Fox is sure to draw the attention of the Y chromosome.

What’s interesting though is that a movie which is panned and “demolished” by numerous critics both overseas and at home, has taken the box office by storm. It became the first movie in 2009 to breach the US$300 million mark globally, achieving a massive US$109 million taking in the first weekend alone.

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Seth Godin Talks about Tribes

May 21, 2009 • Blog • no comments

One of my favourite marketing gurus Seth Godin shares his ideas on how tribes are changing the world, community by community, in a grassroots evangelistic sort of way. In the age of social media with its platforms and tools – blogs, Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, Twitter, Plurk etc – the barriers to entry in starting any movement is considerably lowered. The democratisation of publishing and content production means that anybody can leverage on these tools to create pockets of influence wherever they are.

While not every one of us can be as convincing or charismatic a speaker as Seth, his speech does give us much food for thought on what we can do as marketers, as communicators, as publicists and as leaders. Perhaps it is time for us to start our own movements today?

PS – I just heard from Jackie Huba (via Twitter) of Church of the Customer that Seth’s looking for stories for his next edition of Purple Cow. Sounds like a great way to get your local stories of extraordinary products and businesses in …. if you can meet Seth’s high standards! I will start to consider some options now…

Service versus Sales

August 13, 2007 • Blog • 13 comments


Used car salesman (courtesy of Chaka Raysor)

I am always puzzled why companies spend a lot more energy and focus on trying to sell rather than pleasing their customers. If you don’t already know, customer retention is a far more profitable strategy than customer acquisition. That, plus the fact that word of mouth is taking off more than ever in this ad-saturated age of increasingly powerful social networks. Here are some sobering statistics which tells you why you should pamper your existing customers rather than court new ones:

  • A typical dissatisfied customer will tell 6-10 people about the problem. A typical satisfied customer will tell 1-2 people.
  • It costs 6 times more to attract a new customer than it does to keep an old one.
  • Of those customers who quit, 68% do so because of an attitude of indifference by the company or a specific individual.
  • About 7 of 10 complaining customers will do business with you again if you resolve the complaint in their favor.
  • If you resolve a complaint on the spot, 95% of customers will do business with you again.

(Source: Customer Are Always)

Studies have also shown that a Customer’s Lifetime Value (CLV) can be far greater than that of a single transaction. In fact, 70% of a telco’s revenue comes from 30% of its customers: those who stay for years and purchase increasing levels of service. There is a nifty way to calculate CLV here.

Now shouldn’t you start paying more attention to those customers who made you who you are?

The World of WOM

December 5, 2006 • Blog • no comments

Came across this very useful post for those obsessed with defining how Word Of Mouth (WOM) marketing and its various incarnations work. Quoting from the Media Guerrilla and Word Of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA):

Buzz Marketing Using high-profile entertainment or news to get people to
talk about your brand.

Viral Marketing Creating entertaining or informative messages that are

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