By Deb McAlister-Holland Once upon a time, there was a brave knight who rode into battle and (a) slew the dragon (b) rescued the princess and (c) earned fame and fortune, becoming a legend for his many deeds. At least that’s how the story goes. In real life, deeds of derring-do are rare but it’s […]
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How Engaged Are Your Customers?
Jasmine is a mixed-breed dog adopted from the Las Vegas dog pound. She’s a great dog. That’s her in the photo — patiently enduring being posed with a catalog of high-end dog beds while wearing a pair of silly eye glasses. Most of the time, she did what she was asked, (which was to look directly at the […]
Four Marketing Lessons from The Grateful Dead
By Deb McAlister-Holland On April 15, 2010, IDC analysts Frank Gens and Amy Konary presented an executive briefing called The Maturing Cloud: What the Grateful Dead Can Teach Us About Cloud Economics. In addition to IDC’s usual carefully researched data, the webinar included a wealth of thought-provoking information that used analogies from the band’s storied history and […]
Writing Guaranteed Press Releases
by Deb McAlister-Holland Long ago, in an office less than three miles from the one I am in today, I wrote my first press release on an IBM Selectric typewriter. The goal was simple: to persuade a reporter (radio, TV, or print) to take one or more of the sentences in the press release and include it […]
Measuring Earned Media vs. Paid Media
The newest buzz word for engaging current and prospective customers through social media is earned media. It’s measured with the same metrics as traditional paid media (advertising, press releases, telemarketing, direct mail, and email marketing): impressions/audience size, lifts in brand awareness, message awareness, and purchase intent. Quantifying the value of earned media has moved up […]
Two Examples of Multi-channel Marketing Gone Wrong
Here’s this week’s round-up of news stories that we think offer insights or lessons that can help multi-channel distributed marketing organizations. Usually, we select five items, but this week, we’re focusing on just two because they seemed especially compelling. Court Approves Lawsuit Over Toyota Advertising Stunt In 2009, Saatchi and Saatchi (Toyota’s agency at the […]
Improving SEO Ranking: All Tools Are Not Equal
Everyone knows that optimizing your website, press releases, and blog posts for search engines make it easier for people to find your site and improve traffic. It’s less well known that search engines like Google and Bing change and update their algorithms regularly. If you’ve noticed a recent change in the visibility and ranking of […]
Managing Customer Service & Employee Privacy
After the LIMRA Social Media Conference in Cambridge, MA a few weeks ago, one of the attendees who downloaded the presentation deck used for the Customer Service Meets Social Media panel posted this question: “One of the points made in this panel is that front-line employees are often recorded (audio and video) and the results […]
Friday News Round-Up: Links Have a Short Half-life, Crowdsourcing at the White House & More Useful News
Here’s this week’s round-up of news stories that we think offer insights or lessons that can help multi-channel distributed marketing organizations. The “half-life” of links depends on where they are posted. Bit.ly, the link-shortening service, reported this week on the results of a study by Hilary Mason that shows how a link’s half-life is, depending on […]
Repetition, Transparency, Multi-channel Communications Help Rebuild Trust
One of the daily challenges for marketing is building trust among consumers. It’s never been easy, but it’s gotten harder over the last two years. Luckily, multi-channel marketers have a clear path to reaching out to the public through web, social media, PR, and trusted local agents or managers. Building trust in difficult economic times […]
Four “Old-fashioned” Marketing Tools That Distributed Marketing Still Needs
There’s been so much buzz lately about QR codes and social media that it’s easy to forget about some tried and true – even “old fashioned” marketing tools. But here are four that research shows should still be at or near the top of your distributed marketing checklist. Why? Because they work! Adding these four “old-fashioned” […]
Happy Labor Day!
No new post on The Distributed Marketing Blog today — it’s Labor Day in the USA. Have a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend!