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

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

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

Organizations want to do great work and make clients happy, but when should they draw the line with a disrespectful client? Here are a few client situations that may resonate with your organization along with possible solutions.

SCENARIO: The client continually calls at the last minute to have a service completed – even when you have provided suggestions on minimizing last minute requests.

SOLUTION: If the client continues to provide last minute requests, suggest a separate and distinct rate for the quick turn-around (example: 15-20%). This type of behavior is hard to adjust without radical resolve. If the client continues to argue the point, consider transitioning them out. 

SCENARIO: After each monthly invoice, the client asks for you to cut the charges in half.

SOLUTION: If the client continues to ask for steep discounts on your services, they don’t see the value of your services.  Communicating with the client after each completed service may aid in validating charges.  If the price reduction continues, gladly suggest a competitor as an alternative and provide a ‘hand-off’ of 30 days to transition. You will be surprised how quickly the client will become compliant.

SCENARIO: You hear from others in your industry that your key client is unhappy and is bad mouthing your services. The client tells you that he is happy but hasn’t called back for more work.

SOLUTION: To diffuse this type of behavior immediately, ask to quote the client and/or include them in a very visible event or product announcement or blog.  If they truly are bad mouthing you, this is your chance to flush out the reality of the relationship – good or bad.

More Resources:

Entrepreneur: Fire Your Bad Clients

Legal Marketing Blog: Are Bad Clients Keeping You Up at Night?

Webmaster World: Three Warning Signs of a Nightmare Client

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

There has been a lot of conversation recently on the question of web and software project agility – that is, movement from traditional plan-driven methods in favor of iteration. 

Web strategists and developers are moving to agile processes because the technology marketplace demands higher response to change. Specifically, no sooner do you develop a plan document when the scope changes  – causing loss of time, productivity and bottom-line ROI.

A colleague of mine, Brian Molstad of Molstad Consulting summed it up nicely: 

"As much as I am a major proponent of documenting requirements and asking the right questions early on, I recognize that documents and prototypes have a shelf life. When it's time to move on to the next iteration, it's time to move on. 

Unfortunately, some development teams I've worked with get a little documentation, and they ask for more and more.  I've much preferred working with those teams who take the high-level structure I provide and innovate within (and outside of) the box. When other developers/clients have asked for more specs, I prefer to respond with, "can't we move into HTML to get this going?"

Perhaps I have no problem giving up "control" of a project since I don't come from a formal project management background and more that of information architecture, usability, user-centered design, etc., which has always favored designing in iterations. I look at project management as whatever it takes to get the project done and provide the most value quickly. Here's to agile development!"

If you feel you’re  ready to take the ‘agility’ plunge – here are some great resources to get started.

Discussion groups:

Agile Project Management

Scrum Development

Extreme Programmer

Best

Denice MacDonald

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 

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

You've spent a lot of time building up your reputation and image both online and off, so it's important to make sure that someone or something has not jeopardized your brand.

One of the simplest and easiest ways to track your reputation is to use Google Alerts. With this free service, you can search either all of Google's properties, or you can specify that only News, Blogs, Web, Video, or Groups is searched. You can then configure the Alerts results to be emailed to you either as it happens, once a day, or once a week. There is also a page where you can edit the alerts once they are created or delete them when they are no longer in use. 

If making a good name for yourself online is a priority, it's time to take a proactive approach to getting your name out there the way you want.  

BUSINESS SOCIAL NETWORKS – Complete your profile in its entirety and connect with key professionals in your network.

BLOGS – Consider a business blog and one that you contribute to – showing you are a thought leader will aid in elevating you or your products in your industry. Likewise, use blogs to amend or respond to bad hype.

WEB 2.0 PR – Get news interviews, podcasts, webinars with clients 'live' online. Third party testimonials by key constituents regarding your products and services will go a long way in building brand reputation.

LINKING – If you have a web site, consider carefully where and how inbound and outbound links are connected – bad links will reflect poorly on your brand.

SUB-DOMAINS - Add a sub-domain for careers, corporate and/or product info for little or no cost.  Not only will sub-domains elevate your search results but add depth to your reputation.

PPC/ONLINE ADVERTISING – This can only help protect your brand and will help influence visitors to see who is the real website that should be visited.

SEARCH - Take control of the visible results of any search related to your brand. By taking a coordinated approach to search engine optimization, you take greater control of the other nine slots.  

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Tradeshows are no longer simply ‘meet and greet’ events. 

Tradeshows offer a tremendous opportunity for businesses to increase market share with existing customers, introduce new products and services while creating and converting new leads.

Leveraging the Marketing Mix - It is imperative that your marketing efforts include pre-show, at-show and post-show activity. 

Before the show, consider direct or e-mail marketing.  Reason simply, mail lists are typically included with the exhibitor fee and offer a low-budget way to attract leads to your booth.  In some cases, the list can be vetted to include leads more aligned with your offerings.  Don’t forget to include customers in your mailing and/or offer ‘free passes’.

The mailing/announcement could include an incentive or giveaway to your booth. Developing a dynamite giveaway takes thought and creativity. Consider what your target audience wants and what will help them do their job better.

 At the event, use the booth as an effective marketing tool by making a strong statement about who your company is, what you do and how you do it (great signage, large graphics etc.). The purpose of your exhibit is to attract visitors so that you can achieve your marketing objectives. In addition to it being an open, welcoming and friendly space, there needs to be a focal point and a strong key message that communicates a significant benefit to your prospect. Plenty of literature and business cards will help to entice visitors to your offerings. Blogging, onsite kiosks and video imagery will also enhance visitor engagement.
.
Lastly, your people are your ambassadors and are key to visitor engagement. They represent everything your company stands for, so choose them well. Brief them beforehand and make sure that they know: why you are exhibiting; what you are exhibiting and what you expect from them.

Post the event, the key to your tradeshow success is wrapped up in the lead-management process. The longer leads are left unattended, the colder they become. Establish a process by reviewing and vetting leads, set time lines for follow-up including scripting, custom communication and web page, use a database for tracking, make sales representatives accountable for leads given to them, and then measure your results.

Need a great booth?

Contact: Chuck Hill, Director of Marketing and Sales at Creative Works, Inc.

Best to everyone this 4th of July!

Denice MacDonald

“Web Content Management Systems (CMS) are software toolkits that automate the rapid deployment from multiple sources.  Web content management systems (CMS) are collections of application programs and middleware that automatically organize the content for your website according to rules you set up.”
Tony Freeman at DeepBridge Technologies 

Stay true to the rationale

The benefits for a CMS that is the right fit for your organization can improve brand position, elevate the user experience, aid in customer conversion while providing content that is timely and relevant.

Most times, organizations will agree to a CMS as they think it will reduce the need for IT services and/or eliminate full-time positions.  On the contrary, the use of a CMS will actually require dedicated resources and several defined skill sets.  Moreover, if the wrong CMS is deployed, financial risks can be high.  Be aware that it's not software you're introducing to your company, but change.

What kind of software do you really need?

Defining the exact nature of your CMS requirements can be daunting but a necessary business process.  Sites often termed brochureware will migrate to a CMS that is strictly content-based whereas sites with e-commerce, digital assets, sophisticated collaboration (CRM) or enterprise integration will require a hardier CMS with more functionality. 

Start by drafting your CMS requirements and creating a formal RFP. This should be a project in and of itself, with the appropriate resources and relevant stakeholders allocated to make sure that it is done well. The RFP should include suggested infrastructure and technologies and offer vendors an opportunity to suggest alternatives as long as the suggestions are accompanied with a detailed explanation and justification.

Careful scrutiny should be given to vendors that provide training, yearly licensing and version upgrades, maintenance and support – bundled or unbundled in the fee negotiation. 

If you do your homework correctly, your CMS will have a five to ten year shelf-life and provide the organization with a defined return on investment.

Best Resources:

• CMS Watch Report
• CMS Matrix

My Pics:

Ektron CMS

Sitecore CMS 
 

Best,
Denice MacDonald

We've been sitting on the sidelines watching with wonder the latest Yahoo - Microsoft - Google triangle of events.  Finally, an outcome worth commentary. I agree with Venture capitalist Fred Wilson that Yahoo did the right thing by choosing Google over Microsoft as a partner. 

Wilson contends, "Yahoo! finally woke up and did what they should have done years ago, cede search monetization to Google who simply does it better and will always do this era of search better than anyone else. Now Yahoo! will do what it needs to do. Clean house, get lean, and get out of businesses it shouldn't be in. Focus on what it's good at. And start making money and growing again. They may need new leadership to do that. But selling this asset to Microsoft just because they had the wrong leadership and probably still have the wrong leadership is a mistake."

Google CEO Eric Schmidt couldn't be happier.  In a press statement he indicated: "This commercial agreement provides Yahoo with the opportunity to deliver more relevant ads to users and provide advertisers and publishers with better advertising technology to help them succeed in their own businesses. This agreement will preserve the competitive and dynamic online advertising space."

It will be interesting to see if Yahoo can redefine themselves in short order and do what they have to do to keep everyone happy - but partnering with Google will lessen the burden.  It will be interesting to watch and we certainly will learn a lot.  That's the best part about being the small guy on the sidelines.

Podcasting complements blogging:

Podcasting is not only user generated content, but user generated content in its most intimate and persuasive forms, it is the sound of your voice, the sound of your music or your captured video. In most cases, podcasting is affordable/free and podcasts are always portable.  Moreover, podcasting is a 'literal voice that complements the virtual voice of blogging" according to Steve Dembo, Teach42: "Why Podcast While You Already Have a Blog?"

If you have something to share – a message, information, or commentary, start with a good podcasting program that can help you create the podcasts you envision. Podcasting software can help you create professional sounding podcasts and facilitates publication to your blog, your web site or a podcast directory. This is more than what audio editing software alone can do; audio editing programs generally do not support tag and feed creation.

Where to start:

I recently completed a podcast software review for a client and found that Podcast Station was the best solution for voi