THIS ISSUE INCLUDES: •  What's New? •  Going, Going … Gone! •  Resource Referral •  Lessons Learned •  Tips & Tricks •  Community Leaders •  Member Spotlight •  Community Stats •  Your Account Summary •  Success Story •  Special Thanks •  Last Laugh

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WHAT'S NEW?

Dear Askers & Answerers,

Hola from Peru! I'm on vacation this week and writing you from Cuzco - the jumping off point for a 4-day trek to Machu Picchu. Back home, Carrie and Megan have produced this installment of Know-How News for you.

But MP is never far from my mind. I can tell you that in a few hours, we will broadcast our virtual seminar - "But Wait, There's More": A User's Guide to the Basics of Direct Response TV (and Radio). Be sure to check that out.

In other news, we are more than halfway through writing our SEO Vendor Selector. And we are kicking off the development work on our newest Vendor Selector for Web Analyics firms. Watch for these two in August and October.

I look forward to writing the next newsletter when I return. In the meantime, I hope you have a terrific rest-of-the-week!

Happy exchanging,

Val Frazee
Moderator, Know-How Exchange
MarketingProfs.com

GOING, GOING, GONE!

Here are KHE's 10 oldest questions. They're likely to close soon. Have an idea to offer? Better do it now!

1. Brand Consultancy Firms
2. Increasing Dinner Sales Effectively
3. Moral Considerations in Advertising?
4. How or where can I start my own clothing line?
5. Help needed in selling advertising space on cars
6. Measuring Customer Retention Marketing & Metrics
7. The rural and urban divide will bridge in 20yrs
8. About Summer Internship
9. Asking for a raise
10. What is the best wall color for a retail gift shop

RESOURCE REFERRAL: SALES PIPELINE CALCULATOR

This week's resource referral comes to us from pat.divilly. He recommended a great Excel-based tool that helps you calculate the value and number of monthly new business opportunities needed at each stage of the pipeline in order to achieve revenue targets. I like the tool because it's simple to use and follow.

Resource: Sales Pipeline Planner Calculator

Browse 307 other resources recommended by our members in KHE's Resource Library. Or add one of your own!

LESSONS LEARNED: REBRANDING DO'S AND DON'TS

Recently, a Top 25 Expert member Jim Deveau/Catalyst asked the forum for examples of best/worst practices in rebrandings. The discussions provided some amazing failures and more remarkable successes. Here are some excerpts from the discussion.

• virago wrote from personal experience. The top two problems he encountered in a rebranding situation were: 1. Lack of funding and support from senior managers. 2. Short timeframes to develop strategy, plans, and execution.
• thinkmor™ gave some key things to consider in order to implement a successful rebranding: "Identify all internal and external stakeholders perceptions and needs in the change process. ... Integrate implementation with the decision making process. ... Through comprehensive planning, monitor/evaluate mini milestones/objectives and incorporate contingency plans in case of crises." ... He went on to provide some excellent examples, including Abbey National's futile attempt and the more successful HSBC, BP, BG, and Sodexho rebrandings.
• AndrewS: "A brand must deliver the promoted promise. ... The business must understand what market they are in, what the market trends are. ... Re-branding must throw most of the efforts internally, because it's the people inside the business that will deliver the promise." ... He went on to point out a classic UK re-branding failure that occurred when Royal Mails changed its name to "Consignia."
• Mushfique Manzoor: Gave links to several re-brandings - Slovak Telecon, Landor, Club Med, UK government's Department of Culture.
• ASVP/ChrisB: discussed several BP rebrandings. "They went 'Green' in the late '80s, at a global cost of some GBP600M at the time as I recollect, and their chairman said that the rebrand paid for itself inside six (?) months (might have been 9, but it was short) simple in terms of increased sales attributable to the rebranding."

Question: Rebranding Do's and Don'ts - Case Study Request

The question may be closed, but I recommend anyone interested in rebranding review the links provided. They are truly amazing!

TIPS & TRICKS: EMAIL ADDRESSES

It's against our Community Guidelines to post email addresses or other contact information in response to a forum question. We unceremoniously delete email addresses from forum posts, when we see them, primarily to protect the recipients from spam. (Also to keep the self-promotional dialogue to a minimum.)

Please feel free to use the My Profile page to share your personal contact info. (We've put extra protections in place to block email address harvesters on this page). If there's someone you want to refer the Asker to, you can look for Askers' contact info by clicking on their names. If they have chosen to publish their email addresses, you can send referrals to them directly.

The best alternative, however, might be for you to alert the referral to this question. Let them set up their own membership and KHE profile page, and they can respond to the question themselves. That way we all benefit from the knowledge exchange.

Have a question? Ask the experts.

Post a brief synopsis below, and invite other members to offer their feedback.

My Question Title

COMMUNITY LEADERS

As of this week, these are our superstars! The Most Resourceful are those who have contributed the most entries to the Resource Library. The Most Expert are those with the highest number of Expert Points (earned by answering questions).

NOTE: These are our top members as of midday July 21, 2005

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: MEET BOB HOGG

If you've been in the forum at all lately, chances are you've run into bobhogg. This Top 35 expert has been with us since August 2001. That's not a typo, he really has been through all the incarnations of this organization. Having read his bio, I can see why. Read on to learn more about this active participant.

Where are you based?
I live and work in a village just a few miles outside of Peterborough in the East of England. (That's about 90 miles due north of London for those who don't know the UK.)

What do you do in real-life?
Right now, I am in the middle of putting together a new business with four colleagues. The new business will provide in-company marketing training for client companies plus practical follow-up help in the form of coaching/mentoring and consultancy to ensure that what delegates learn on the training courses is actually put into practice in their day-to-day roles within their companies. In parallel with this, we are also developing a College of Marketing to provide tuition for professional marketing qualifications under the Chartered Institute of Marketing's programmes.

We've already delivered a very successful pilot training and coaching programme for a public-sector organisation locally; the College will open in September if all goes to plan!

What kinds of KHE questions do you enjoy most?
The ones where the original questioner responds and gets involved in the discussion - that way, you know that the knowledge being shared is really helping someone.

What is your favorite marketing book?
It's All About Customers by John Frazer-Robinson - because it's a good read (not at all academic) and it's title could be used as a good definition of marketing!

Do you belong to any networking organizations?
I have been a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) for many years and am one of a team who organise events for the Institute in our local area. I've also been an examiner for the CIM's professional qualifications for the past 4 years. The CIM is therefore my main networking method in the UK.

How did you get started in marketing?
I've been involved in marketing for longer than I care to admit! I got started by being encouraged to go on a new Master's degree course at Newcastle University over 30 years ago.

Did you study marketing in college?
I did study marketing (a long time ago, at Newcastle University), which got me started on a marketing career - however, much of what I now know about marketing has been learnt on the job. And that process continues - the students I teach and the delegates on our training courses teach me a lot from their experience (and, hopefully, I teach them something from mine.)

Do you have a mentor? What has he/she has taught you?
That would have to be my original Professor at Newcastle University who really got me started on this marketing road. His name was Mark Carpenter (he sadly died some years ago) but his pioneering work in encouraging marketing education in the UK has gone largely unrecognised. His personal encouragement to his students was also hugely influential (certainly in my case.)

Describe one of your non-marketing hobbies or interests.
Walking our German Short-haired Pointer dogs across the fields where we live. I work from an office at home - whenever I experience a mental block on something I'm working on, walking the dogs is almost guaranteed to clear it!

What is the value KHE provides to you personally?
By providing a community of like-minded individuals with hugely diverse backgrounds with whom I can discuss marketing issues and get valuable insights into a whole variety of topics.

Do you have any advice for new members of KHE?
Get involved - contribute to discussions and you'll learn a lot (just like me!).

Do you have a favorite quote you want to share?
Peter Drucker: "Marketing is the whole business seen from the customer's point of view."

COMMUNITY STATS

Active Unique Participants (to date): 6,983
Closed Questions (to date): 8,167
Currently Open Questions: 146
Total Responses (to date): 54,967
Subscribers to this newsletter: 16,406

YOUR ACCOUNT SUMMARY

These numbers come directly from YOUR profile. Question Points tells you how many points you have available for asking questions in the forum. Expert Points indicates your standing in the community based on answers you have posted. Visit this FAQ, if you want to know more.

Question Points: %%PointsBalance%%
Expert Points: %%PointsCum%%

Click here to buy more Question Points

SUCCESS STORY

W.M.M.A. shares this week's good news:

"I have had many successes within the framework of KHE. It would be impossible to select just one success and highlight it. Since becoming a member, the success, the growth which White Mountain Marketing Associates has experienced, comes in part from the thousands of responses to thousands of questions I have read on the forum. From the study of these questions and responses, we have been able to implement policies and procedures, make adjustments to products and services and have accelerated our ability to more effectively communicate with our clients . All of this, due to the collective intelligence of this KHE community.

Additionally, the business and personal relationships that have been built due to the forum, is priceless. And, I'm sure I'm not alone when I state that I have every confidence that there are individuals and companies whose position in their market has been enhanced simply because they have had the opportunity to read the responses put forth in the forum.

One day, I'd like to see a KHE book on the shelves of stores and college/university libraries across the globe. This forum is truly the basis upon which some of the most successful marketing programs have, and will continue to be developed."

Question: Employee Training Programs - Financial

SPECIAL THANKS

Thank you, bobhogg, pat.divilly and W.M.M.A. for contributing to this newsletter. And thanks to all the community members who have emailed or posted suggestions, technical reports or questions since the last issue. Your energy drives this community's development. We couldn't do it without you!

Finally, thanks to my MP colleagues for making my job easy: Aaron, Carrie, Shelley, Sharon, Megan, Achim, Ann, Roy and Allen.

LAST LAUGH

I like to close with a smile. So this space is dedicated to something amusing one of you folks have posted in the forum.

E-Marketing is relatively new to KHE. A few weeks ago he posted a question about Vokens. Now, for anyone who doesn’t know what that is (and I was one), a Voken is an "Interactive virtual token." Every time I see this question, I chuckle. What can I say? There's a new Star Wars movie out and I was at my local book shop at midnight to get my reserved copy of the latest Harry Potter book. So, my mind was prepared for a Voken to be something other than what it was.

Pepper Blue's response agrees with mine: "Very annoying and yet sometimes very amusing."

Discussion: Do People Like Vokens?

This is a closed discussion, but well worth reviewing, especially for the summary at the end.

Forum Feedback: The Know-How Exchange is still young. So we're constantly refining how things work. We have a gigantic list of action items, and your feedback helps us prioritize it. So please feel free to reply to this email with any suggestions. Thanks, in advance, for your time!

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