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Seven Tips for Forging an Appropriate Online Apologyby Denise Keller
Despite best efforts, mistakes happen to every small business at some point. The key is not to panic, but to apologize to customers—the right way—and assure them that you are still worthy of their trust, confidence, and respect.
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Six Steps for Rebuilding Your Brand After a Crisisby Larry Berg
It's amazing how quickly a brand can find itself in a crisis, struggling to salvage its reputation. But your brand doesn't have to suffer. Learn six steps to take—before and after a crisis—that'll help rebuild customer confidence.
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Five Ways Your Loyalty Program Can Deliver the 'Wow' Factorby Fred Thompson
To deliver the critical wow factor that draws people into loyalty programs and keeps them there, marketers must get inside customers' heads to identify what motivates them. Learn five key points about driving customer behavior.
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A Seven-Step Guideline in Crisis Communication (Lessons From the Sony PlayStation Network Breach)by C. Edward Brice
A crisis can serve as a stage to show the world that your company is either unorganized and uncaring or responsible and human. Learn how to preserve your brand equity—and keep your customers—during a crisis.
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Can We Hug? Six Tips for Getting Customers to Show You Loveby Loren McDonald
Hugging your customers—at least in a virtual, figurative sense—can increase engagement and boost positive word-of-mouth. Here are six ways to get customers to embrace you and market for you.
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Jeff Bezos and the Shoe-Store Owner: How to Build Instant Rapport With Your Customersby Aman Basanti
In April 2009, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos convinced Zappos founder Tony Hsieh to sell his online shoe store despite his initial reluctance. The story serves as a lesson to all marketers on building rapport with customers.
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Customer Advocacy and the New Purchase Funnelby Michael Brito
President Obama's 2008 presidential campaign was successful because he created and mobilized advocates. Brands can apply that winning strategy, too—if they invest in and drive customer advocacy programs.
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SMS Marketing: How to Harvest Your Customers' Mobile Detailsby Bill Hilton
SMS marketing is a huge growth area for all businesses. It's cheap, easy to track, direct, and personal. Interested? Learn how to collect your customers' mobile numbers—and keep them open to receiving texts.
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The Funnel Is Dead, Long Live the Measurable Customer Narrativeby Jen Evans
One of those reassuring little white lies we tell ourselves as marketers is this: People make linear decisions. It's simpler to draw straight lines about people's behavior, so to date we have typically pushed people through carefully scripted marketing processes. ...
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Seven Simple Ways You Can Strengthen Customer Relationshipsby Stephanie Phillips
A company can successfully build its brand name in many ways, but perhaps the factor most important for its continued success is its relationships with clients. Learn to keep the magic alive—and get results.
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How to Evolve Your B2B Customer Experience Using Imagesby Chad McCloud
Do you know why your customers behave as they do? People tend to have difficulty explaining exactly why they like a product, but using images can help you get to the root of the real drivers of customer behavior.
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How an Unhappy Customer Can (Paradoxically) Help Your Businessby CB Whittemore
Many businesses simply fix issues when customers complain. But there's a lot of effort—and angst—that precedes an actual complaint. Learn how to funnel that energy positively and generate productive, lasting outcomes.
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Humanize Your Email Marketing With a Well-Timed Thank Youby Karen Talavera
If you're in the business of building lasting customer relationships, saying "thank you" is essential. Without it, you're at greater risk of customer flight—and you're a sitting duck for the competition. Here's how to thank your customers via email—the right ...
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Seven Principles for Social Success and the Companies Already Getting Them Rightby Barry Libert
Let's face it: Business is changing. It's now being conducted through meaningful conversations between organizations and constituents. But it isn't easy. Here are seven rules to live by to achieve social success.
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Five-Star Books: Content Rules by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapmanby Roy Young
If you are a content creator, use Content Rules to break through writer’s block. If you are a content manager, use the book to elevate the quality and impact of the output. Regardless of your level in the organization and ...
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How Vulnerable Are You to Customer Defection?by Laura Patterson
Our job as marketers is to acquire, grow, and retain profitable customer relationships to create a sustainable competitive advantage. Here are five factors for measuring (and maintaining) successful customer relationships.
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Social CRM: Measuring Relationships (the Wrong Way, and the Right Way)by Sean Howard
If you've invested a lot in social media, you hopefully have a growing number of people talking about you. If so, who are they? Which ones are driving the conversation? Do your social CRM measurement tools tell you anything?
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Five Relationship Blunders to Avoid in Your Sales and Marketingby Kathy Sacks
With Valentine's Day here, I'm reminded that marketing is like dating. You have to attract leads and differentiate yourself from the competition. Steer clear of these five mistakes, and build long-term relationships with your customers.
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Customer Experience Leadership Survival Guide, Part 1by Jeanne Bliss
To make customer experience stick as part of your operation, you need to have an organized and phased approach for integrating it into your organization. Without it, customer experience becomes one more customer-focused tactic that your company tried for a ...
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Why Amazon Doesn't Understand Social Commerceby Leigh Duncan-Durst
Even before the recent furor over Amazon's sale of the self-published "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure," and the subsequent less-than-stellar and social-media-inept response by Amazon, it seemed clear that the pioneering e-commerce giant had begun to fall behind ...