Despite its iconic status, Starbucks has struggled of late, stung by disappointing quarterly results and closing some 600 stores. Where did the coffee giant go wrong? AND, do they have an opportunity to get back to the brand's heritage and core values? 

If you're like me, Starbucks had initially been a 'coffee treat' - that is, I would cherish those moments where I would opt for a $4 cup of coffee over having to buy a gallon of milk. As time went on, I got really hooked on the coffee AND the Starbucks culture - an environment with an amzaing brand experience that I wouldn't get from driving through McDonalds for an iced coffee. But I sense that Starbucks has moved beyond their initial brand experience — offering a bloated storefront with retail goods along with breakfast sandwiches to entice new customers.    

What can we learn from Starbucks early legacy and success?

Simply this, when creating a differentiating brand, insure that your entire company understands what your brand ultimately promises to customers. A brand promise is the backbone of any marketing strategy. Starbucks differentiated themselves by offering “indulgence and escape” not just “expensive gourmet coffees.”   

Delivering a memorable and relevant experience will drive customer loyalty and ultimately create brand ambassadors — people who not only buy from you but also virally testify to the benefits of your brand to others. Building a relevant experience is critical if your company is vying for optimum growth — even during economic fluctuations or competitor resurgence. 

Lastly, how do you create these experiences?

The answer lies in understanding what is important to customers. What information do they seek? What is valuable to them? What can you do to make their life easier? By understanding your brand and how it resonates with customers, you can create experiences rather than just selling products. 

Resources

Building Brands: Unlock Your Potential

Building Brands and Believers: How to Connect with Consumers Using Archetypes by Kent Wertime

Brand Channel

Best,

Denice MacDonald

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the release of “E-mail Data Management Best Practices,” a document with a series of far-reaching privacy and data security recommendations intended for publishers, marketers and service providers.  

Focusing on protecting consumer privacy while improving effectiveness in e-mail marketing executions, the document was released at TARGUSinfo’s Online Lead Quality Summit. 

Some of the document’s key recommendations are: 

 √  Senders should send commercial e-mail only to individuals who have provided informed consent.

 √  A global unsubscribe mechanism should be implemented for all companies sending e-mails.Advertisers and marketers should authenticate their e-mails by publicly registering the domains from which they send the e-mail.

 √  A company cannot transfer a consumer’s permission to receive commercial e-mail to another company without the transfer being referenced in the new company’s e-mails. 

About the IAB 

Founded in 1996, the Interactive Advertising Bureau represents over 375 leading interactive companies that actively engage in and support the sale of interactive advertising. IAB members are responsible for selling over 86% of online advertising in the United States.

From my perspective, the IAB is a 'must-have' resource for any web marketer.

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Google News is one of the top five visited news portals on the web - making it a very desirable place to get your web site AND business noticed.  

The benefits of listing at Google News are twofold; first, most visitors end up back at Google News if they subscribe to news alerts or RSS feeds. Secondly, there are numerous SEO benefits as other web sites or bloggers will link back to Google news articles increasing both link reciprocation and heightened traffic.   

How can you get your articles submitted to Google News? There are some fast and simple rules that Google News will use to consider your organization. They include: 

Original/Validated Content - Google News scrutinizes content for professionalism, relevance and authenticity. Organizations cannot submit repurposed content or content that is not from the originating web site organization.  

Authors and Editors - Google News looks to organizations with multiple authors (not bloggers) to qualify an organization. 

Evidence of Organization - Google News will need to validate the organization as an existing/operating entity. That is, Google News will look for a dedicated, templated 'news area' that clearly defines the industry that the organization is in. Google News tends to approve web sites with a minimum of 100 active/achrived articles. 

To apply to Google News, click here. 

Additional News Portals for Article Submission:

Yahoo News

Topix.net

Best,

Denice MacDonald

According to a recent e-Marketer report, more than six out of 10 CMOs and senior marketing professionals surveyed in the US said that digital tactics (including mobile, video, e-mail etc.) accounted for more than one-quarter of their agency marketing, according to a July 2008 study by Zoomerang for Sapient.  

Respondents also said digital marketing was growing in importance. Nearly one-half (45%) of those polled had either switched agencies or planned to switch during the next 12 months to gain access to more digital expertise. Almost eight out of 10 said that agencies' interactive and digital aptitude was important or very important.  

What is digital marketing and what does it mean for marketers? 

According to Wikipedia, digital marketing is defined as the practice of promoting products and services using digital distribution channels to reach consumers in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner. By doing so, marketers realize the following benefits: 

Brand-advantage – typically in the past, marketing and any digital initiatives were handled separately or were non-existent. With the use of digital technology, marketing professionals have an opportunity to enhance messaging and bring cohesiveness to their brand. 

Larger reach – digital initiatives allow marketers to expand their campaigns beyond one single effort leveraging several channels to optimize budget dollars and reach. 

Personalization – with digital initiatives, messages are highly targeted and specific allowing marketers to not only track how many people saw their message but also specific information about each user. 

As marketers, digital tactics allow for many opportunities that can be tracked measured and refined. To learn more about digital marketing and tactics, consider accessing the following resources: 

• The McKinsey Quarterly – Digital Marketing
• NetImperative – Digital Marketing News and Events
• MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer

Best

Denice MacDonald

Communities are about delivering game-changing results - from increasing customer revenue, to introducing product and solutions, communities aid in increasing overall brand effectiveness while decreasing costs. 

How do we know this? Well, recently, Beeline Labs, Deloitte and the Society of New Communications Research have produced a compelling study: "The 2008 Tribalization of Business study" which focuses on the early experiences of more than 140 organizations on how they’re managing communities, measuring success, and reaping business benefits. 

Great Take-away - Lessons Learned 

When asked for the most important advice they had for others starting communities, survey respondents had many good tips to share. Two of the eight "Best Practices" that emerged from the research: 

Keep it simple and intuitive: “Focus on the least common denominator first. Keep it easy to navigate with simple tools to use.” People are busy; they need information in brief, easy-to-scan bits s they can quickly choose what is interesting to them and go right to it.  

Keep it fresh and active: “Keep activity levels up, constantly add new content.” “ Think of how to create ‘events’ – what can you do to excite people and get them to share in the community.” “Update regularly, find topics for discussion’ “Content is king” 

To access the results of the study through an interactive slideshare, go here.  

More Great Resources:

The Long-tail Effectiveness of Business Communities  

Understanding the power of communities - even when you do not have a critical mass of users

Best

Denice MacDonald 

Anyone who has a vested interest in a corporate or personal blog knows it takes time and effort to produce a great blog. I personally belong to a dozen blogs and try to read them each day. From a personal standpoint, I can tell you what keeps me clicking back and what I look for in other blogs.

Recently I wrote a blog on several of my favorite bloggers and received several e-mails asking what I thought made a great blog.  Here are my 'must-haves' for a successful blog.

Blogger shows enthusiasm for his/her blog. If it's written to fill space, I can tell. I’m only interested in blogs that surprise, delight, amuse and inform.

The blog is well written. I read certain blogs because I not only enjoy reading them, but I’m truly getting information that is important to me – in a style of writing that is more conversational and with the bloggers point of view (good or bad) in mind.

The blog has links to other blogs, newsfeeds or other relevant information. I want to know that this blog is going to get me the next relevant click of information. I love resources, links back to other blogs and creditable information so that I can understand the bloggers opinion or slant.

The blog is updated regularly. There’s nothing worse than finding a great blog only to find out that the blogger blogs on a sporadic basis. I want a blog to be committed to me, the reader, by providing ongoing, updated content – especially if I have subscribed to their feeds.

The blog embraces comments and feedback. I welcome an opportunity to comment on content and provide my opinion on topics. More sophisticated blogs allows sign in and the ability to post comments making the blog very interactive and viral in nature.

The blog is properly tagged and categorized. Make it easy for me to move around your blog, clicking on other categories or relevant tags.

More Great Bloggers:

The Rules Behind Creating a Great Blog by Tom Hung, ProBlogger

27 Tips for Building a Kick-ass Blog by Ahmed Bilal

What Makes a Great Company Blog by Mack Collier

Best

Denice MacDonald

Those of us who have recently started blogging had to take a cue from someone - fortunately there are great bloggers out there to emulate. 

In a recent LinkedIn question set, a subscriber asked if any of us knew of great bloggers - that is, what makes certain bloggers so great, and what business people can learn from them. In my industry, I've come to learn that there are many bloggers out there who can slam out a well written techy-blog. BUT, there are few out there who can really capture the essence of a topic - giving it life and relevance to us 'day-to-day' business types. 

So to honor those great bloggers in my network - I've assembled a few of my favorites so that you can benefit from their wit, intelligence and content to make your business successful.

Jeremiah Owyang - describes himself as a Web Strategist who strives to define and deliver user and community needs, business goals, and web technology to craft and deliver long term successful web programs for companies. Jerimiah provides current insight into technology, technology use and delivery.  Take a look at his blog and decide for yourself.

August ("Augie") Ray - provides articles and insights about the way marketers craft experiences, both online and in the real world, and how these experiences shape consumers' relationships to brands. Augie provides colorful dialogue about business experiences in a way that helps guide us through our own brand issues.  His blog is a delight to read.

Social Media Today - has several established authors and is a moderated online business community for social media, bloggers, marketers, PR and media professionals. It provides the greatest depth in social media today - suffice the name. BTW - Augie blogs on this one too along with Charlene Li who co-authored "Groundswell" - winning in a world transformed by social technologies.

To find blogs in your industry to emulate - check out these award sites:

The Best of Blogs

Bloggers Choice Awards

The Weblog Awards

Best

Denice MacDonald

Believe it or not, you may be a SuperTron – a technology enthusiast considered part of the early adopters phenomenon.   

In his book "Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why It Matters", author Bill Tancer emphasizes the critical role that SuperTrons play. Specifically, the author analyzes the new generation of consumerism in a way no other has before, showing how we use the Internet, and how those trends provide a wealth of market research nearly as vast as the Internet itself in attracting and using SuperTrons as a defined segment to market to. 

Why does this all matter? 

The insight into the new media habits of an early adopter consumer will be valuable for media companies, tech firms and cable and satellite operations that want to reach this segment but also tap mainstream as well.   

An excellent example of a web site that resonates with early adopters is the recent launch of “Nat Geo” music service. National Geographic tapped the behavior that drives SuperTrons to ‘get the word out’ thereby pushing their web site to the mainstream.

Resources

Early Adopters - Defined

National Geographic Music Site

Buy Bill Tancer's Book

Whether you are a well-known non-profit or a highly regarded ivy-league college, fundraising is a dubious task. Simply tapping into a focused, well affluent rolodex or connecting via the university’s alumni simply is not enough. With economic barriers commonplace, asking and getting monies for your organization is going to be tough, if not down-right impossible. 

Here are a few quick ideas that may work – offering less barriers, longer shelf-life and definitely measurement for future initiatives. 

You’re Not Alone – Joint Fundraising:   

Joint fundraising can offer many advantages. From more comprehensive, coordinated efforts to increasing organizational credibility, joint fundraising can give funders ‘more bang for the buck’ offering double the value in leads, monies captured and visibility. Joint fundraising should include both online initiatives and event fundraising. 

Reach a Broader Audience – Online Fundraising Auctions: 

With the help of the Internet, online auctions break the barriers of time and geography and allow organizations to reach a broader audience and increase their fundraising potential. Online auctions offer a more reputable and quantifiable value to donors and sponsors. They also dramatically expand the marketing reach for organizations as a whole, creating a greater awareness of the cause and a greater fundraising capability. 

Use Name Recognition – Online Mall: 

The great thing about creating an online mall is that shoppers are actually shopping directly at the site owned by the store of their choice so they know their experience is safe and secure. Big name brands like Target and Nike have fundraising programs that are quite lucrative and offer visitors numerous choices. The online mall can work independently or in unison with other fundraising initiatives. 

Lastly, fundraising requires a well branded web presence – here are a few great examples: 

• Fundraising using celebrity and a great themed-cause: "Make It Right Nola"  
• Fundraising using great online tactics and themed-cause: "Nothing But Nets" 
• Great Non-profit: "Idealist"
• Great University – UW-Madison using great brand for fundraising efforts: Great people.Great place. Fundraising Initiative Built Around Campus’s Top Priorities   

Before starting your fundraising initiative, consider the following valuable resource: 

• Complete listing of Fundraising Books, Periodicals and White Papers located at UW-Madison, WI

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Before Web 2.0, organizations would take old brochure copy, poor graphics, a couple of cheesy widgets and off they go to build a web site in bad html code. With today’s user expectations, web sites have to be a bit more sophisticated, offering the best-of-breed in user experience and delivery.

To truly build a great web site presence, compete on a level playing field and convert customers, organizations must do a bit of homework before developing their web site.

Review competitors – in order to compete, organizations need to see how they fare against the competition. A comprehensive competitor’s analysis will allow the organization to provide a similar interactive experience when vying for customers to their products or services.

Know your audience – most web sites try to cater to a broad-base audience using a ‘hit or miss’ approach. With today’s web savvy user, web sites need to address exactly who their customers are. In most cases, audiences are looking to be entertained, informed or persuaded - but knowing specific industry focus, generational disposition and online behavior will go a long way in getting your audience to engage, drill down and act.

Create relevant content – with the growth of social communities, blogs and rich video media, content can be served up in many formats. Key to the use of these great Web 2.0 applications is providing relevant content to users.  Similar to ‘knowing your audience’, organizations must segment content based upon visitor types.

Enhance the experience – the visitor experience relates to ease of use, access to relevant content and tools that will help engage, connect and convert customers. Reviewing appropriate navigation, Flash or graphics, web tools or gadgets as well as call-to-action scenarios will enhance the experience and have the visitor coming back for more.

Integrate online and offline strategies – successful organizations have realized that integrating online and offline marketing strategies is the best way to tap into a large customer base and get customers to spend more. Moreover, when an integrated strategic plan is executed for online and offline simultaneously, customers get a single, unified message from the organization that reflects a cohesive brand.

Best

Denice MacDonald 

I recently joined a professional social media networking group and I am very impressed with their latest blog regarding the future of social media. They say, basicially, that we need to watch the evolution of social media very carefully, looking for trends, what’s coming next, what’s likely to bubble up. In reality, they believe that social media is in its infancy. 

In his latest blog, Jim Tobin of Ignite Social Media, provides 5 predictions on the future of social media, ranked from shortest time horizon to longest.

1. Ratings will become an expectation.

2. Content aggregation will boom.

3. New tools will replace some of the first movers.

4. Social networks become portable.

5. Virtual worlds gain traction.

What is the next big push for social media?  My opinion is mobile technology as we become more portable. Likewise, there will need to be greater synergy between networks so that I don't have to recreate profiles or refriend over and over again. Lastly, it will be a challenge to create ongoing engagement and relevancy making content aggregation a top priority.

Resources:

Join Social Media Today - the World's Greatest Thinkers on Social Media and Web 2.0

Ignite Social Media - the Original Social Media Agency

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Recent video metrics are showing that visitors or users of YouTube are no longer geeks, nerds or techno’s.  In fact, recent statistics are showing that YouTube video downloads are being viewed by varying demographics, including an older crowd and business professionals. 

How can you tell who's watching your videos? YouTube now offers a free tool (YouTube Insight) that enables anyone with a YouTube account to view detailed statistics about the videos that they upload.  

For example, uploaders can see how often their videos are viewed in different geographic regions, as well as how popular they are relative to all videos in that market over a given period of time.

You can also delve deeper into the lifecycle of your videos, like how long it takes for a video to become popular, and what happens to video views as popularity peaks.  For now, you can find currently available metrics by clicking under the "About this Video" button under My account > Videos, Favorites, Playlists > Manage my Videos.

YouTube Resources:

Businesses are now realizing the potential of social networking sites like YouTube in using digital formats to engage prospects and customers and elevate recruitment efforts. 

Learn more at these links below. 

• How to get yourself on YouTube, for business or pleasure
• Cisco pumps out some emerging tech products: YouTube for business 
• View YouTube Video: Cisco: The Business Solutions Provider
• YouTube Example Recruitment Video - Recruiting at Aerotek

The OMMA Awards celebrate the year's most innovative and brilliant online advertising creative, campaigns and Web sites across 35 categories within these three disciplines.  

The OMMA Awards for Online Advertising Creativity were created in 2006 to honor the brand marketers, agencies and content providers who continue to push the potential of online advertising creative. This year they've added two new categories: The OMMA Awards for Integrated Online Campaigns and the OMMA Awards for Web Site Excellence.

The online medium is the most fertile canvas for innovation and creativity, and the OMMA Awards salute the stars that shine brilliantly among us.

See web site for details and entry form.

View last year's winners here.

Good luck,

Denice MacDonald

You were just notified from your department head or the CFO that you budget for fourth quarter 2008 has been reduced – or worse yet, eliminated. What do you do now?

Like most organizations I consult with, marketing budgets are defined by reactionary initiatives. What can you do to safeguard your marketing initiatives and still get results?

The Power of Three

It is always advisable to do any type of marketing initiative that will yield three defined uses (create it once, pay for it once, use many ways). That is, if you do a direct marketing piece, you may consider an on-line version and an e-mail version to select recipients. If you’re doing a trade show (money already appropriated), consider some type of interaction at the show that will draw visitors to your online presence and a creative way in which to follow-up with trade show leads. 

Maximize Alternatives and Options

In the case of advertising dollars, some media outlets will allow you to ‘refine’ your budget so that you can reallocate resources to other initiatives – in lieu of one costly ad space, consider spreading your advertising dollars to smaller focused banner ads or thru the media outlet's e-mail/direct mail efforts. Staying connected over time and with more frequency will yield a higher return on investment against budget dollars. (Hint: reconsider costly yellow page ads that can't be tracked and are overpriced!)

Get Others to Pay for It

Lastly, collaborate with all departments and determine what channel partners, associations, or vendors you may have that may garner visibility for your organization. Online reciprocal links, shared webinars, speakerships, collaborative user groups and even shared web pages will multiply your efforts and the bottom-line without incurring any additional budget dollars.  You’d be surprised how many organizations within your network are in the same boat and would welcome a joint campaign to elevate marketing efforts.

Best,

Denice MacDonald 

Many organizations are obsessed with volume – measuring success by how many web pages were viewed or how many people visited the site. In many cases, this type of information is meaningless as it is not directly linked to a web plan or strategy.

Whether its web site traffic analysis, search engine optimization or tracking business success metrics, you need to develop a web strategy ‘up front’ to support measurement objectives. This thought process seems so fundamental but rarely exercised. 

Why? A strategic plan for evaluating your website will help you:

1. Collect only the data you need to make informed, strategic decisions
2. Identify priority “action areas” for improvement, measure the impact of those actions; and keep your customers coming back
3. Determine benchmarks and performance goals you should aspire to, and the extent to which you’re achieving them
4. Determine whether you’re getting a return on the investment you’ve made to build, operate and maintain your web site(s)
5. Evaluate how well your web site is performing relative to competitors, your company's brand, mission statement or hiring criteria

How? Develop a plan – a strategy – and review and adjust it regularly by asking these questions:

• What do you need to measure?
• What are your requirements?
• How will you measure it?
• What tools will you use?
• What methodologies are needed to gather the data you need?
• What will you do with the results?
• How will the results help meet the goals for your web site and your company's mission?
• How does the plan fit with your company's overall strategic and performance plan?

Once armed with this process and validation, you will find that your ROI exceeds expectations!

Great Resources:

Coremetrics Web Metrics
Get powerful web site metrics with the leading provider

Web Measurement Data Fast
ClickTracks web measurement shows behavior, conversion, groups, SEO

WebTrends Analytics
Marketing Intelligence Solutions, leading analytic & metrics software

Web Analytics
Compare web analytics products and get a free report sample from CMS Watch

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Colleagues of mine talked so much during a recent presentation that they 'bought back the sale' - that is, the project was theirs for the taking, but insistent conversation and over confidence about their deliverables turned the prospect off.  Within minutes of the presentation, my colleagues received a declination e-mail saying the prospect went with another vendor. They asked me what went wrong. 

I’ve been both a marketing and sales professional with more sales calls under my belt than I would like to admit. I’ve had the rare opportunity to manage all types of sales professionals – engaging each based on their various ‘sales’ gifts. One type is very technical – having the ability to talk forever on the technical aspects of a product or service feature. Another is highly sociable – providing anecdotes and keen insight on the latest sports conundrum or talking freely about the latest stock market debacle. What years of wisdom and street-smarts can I provide to these professionals (and my colleagues above) – who on many levels ‘think they are doing it right’? 

It’s really this simple, stupid! 

Embrace the warm-up – Often times we delve too quickly into a conversation, meeting or presentation without some type of warm-up.  It’s imperative that you do your homework and find some key nugget about everyone in the room. Engaging everyone in the room in the first five minutes will dictate if you get the next hour with them. Check out their web site – great information on the company and the employees can be found in their blog, careers or community section. Remember, it's all about them - not you. 

Start listening – It's the key to any relationship. Trust me, this has been a hard one for me as I can in every case ‘already see the end product or service’ in play.  It’s imperative that you ask open ended questions to engage prospects and customers regardless of whether you know the answer. Bottom-line, you actually come across more intelligent when you let others do the talking. 

Ditch the word ‘should’ – Most customers are trying hard to do the right thing – oftentimes they themselves make bad choices or worse, don’t know what they’re buying. We don’t need to remind them that they ‘should do this’ or ‘should do that’. The key to a great sale is giving the customer what they want, not what we think they need. You can always explore options later once the relationship has matured. 

Laugh out loud – If you enter into a sales situation that is uptight, predictable or contrived, you will fail. Enjoy the meeting, enjoy the moment. Customers who see your excitement will trust that you are confident and value the task/project/product at hand and they in turn will feel more comfortable with handing you the reins (ummm…the sale). 

Lastly, don't assume that any sale is truly sold. You will need to qualify and redefine the relationship on an ongoing basis. Find mechanisms to stay connected to your clients so that they won't be snatched up by someone else because you forgot to pay attention.

Best,

Denice MacDonald