The Top 5 Corporate Blogging Mistakes—and How to Avoid Them

Most business blogging fails to accomplish anything that is really meaningful, or more importantly measurable. That leaves a lot of businesses frustrated with the media as a whole, and a lot of well-intentioned projects abandoned.

Today, we are going to fix that problem by pointing out five common mistakes and how to remedy them.

Source: Chief Marketer

Harley-Davidson Loyalty Program HOG

Getting Brand Communities Right

In 1983, Harley-Davidson faced extinction. Twenty-five years later, the company boasted a top-50 global brand valued at $7.8 billion. Central to the company’s turnaround, and to its subsequent success, was Harley’s commitment to building a brand community: a group of ardent consumers organized around the lifestyle, activities, and ethos of the brand.

The full story at: Harvard Business Review

In Britain, the time has come to rethink loyalty program

The research report, entitled 'Imperatives for Customer Loyalty', explains that the traditional models for engendering customer loyalty are changing with the economic climate, even in sectors where existing barriers to brand-switching are significant.

Click here to download the free report

Source : The Wise Marketer, Ipsos, The Logic Group

Skype Is Largest International Voice Carrier, Says Study

Skype carried around 33 billion minutes of international voice calls last year, or around 8 percent of all international voice traffic, according to market researcher TeleGeography.

The growth in the company's international traffic -- 41 percent in 2008 -- has been remarkable, according to TeleGeography analyst Stephan Beckert, and has made Skype the largest provider of cross-border voice communications in the world, he said in a statement.

One explanation for the growth in minutes -- despite the fact that the phone has to compete with, for example, instant messaging -- is conference calling, according to Steve Blood, vice president in Gartner Research. Companies are putting the squeeze on air travel, and instead using conference calls to save money, he said.

Source: Skype Is Largest International Voice Carrier, Says Study

Re-Courting Customers For Winback Strategies Requires Right Access To Data

One of the toughest areas of retailing to define is customer value. The reason is because recency and frequency can change radically within a short period of time. When is a customer simply out of the market for your product? When are they in danger of going to a competitor? And when do they need to be reactivated aggressively or “won back?” With new customers tough to come by, many retailers are finding strategies to define and execute these winbacks.

Source: Retail Touch Points

E-Marketing? Eh Marketing? Canadians Are Wired Up

Canadians Juggle Their Online Lives

Canada has some of the world’s most committed Internet users. In 2009, more than 69% of the population is online—compared with less than 65% in the US.

Moreover, four-fifths of Internet users in Canada spend at least an hour a day online for personal reasons, according to a 2009 survey by MSN Canada and Harris/Decima. Of those users, 45% spend 3 hours or more online each day.

But you can have too much of a good thing. Canada’s enthusiasm for online social activity is beginning to cause a few headaches.

A large part of the personal time Internet users in Canada spend online is taken up with e-mail and instant messaging (IM). Two-thirds of the Web users polled said they checked their e-mail often during an average day, and 95% checked at least once a day. In addition, over one-third of respondents used IM several times a day.

That doesn’t sound excessive. The problem is that nine in 10 Web users have more than one online account or profile to manage, according to the survey—and one in five has 10 or more accounts. The average among Canada’s Internet users is seven online accounts. No wonder that 53% of those polled said it was time-consuming to log in to all their accounts, manage message traffic and keep profiles up to date.

Social networking, in particular, makes big demands on Canada’s Web users. (A full 30% of survey respondents said they checked their social network profiles frequently each day.) And those with multiple accounts can’t devote equal attention to all of them. Almost one-half (45%) of Web users said they could not manage their accounts effectively, and more than one-half of those with four or more online accounts said they spent most of their time managing just one.

The issue is even more acute for Web users in Canada who use the Internet chiefly as a social tool, noted Andrew Assad of Microsoft Canada. More than one-quarter (27%) of Web users with this strong social motivation defined themselves as chameleons when engaged in social networking; they tended to create different profiles for different audiences, and changed their style and approach depending on the context of interaction

Source: eMarketer

Twitter Posts Meteoric 1,384% YoY Growth

Twitter experienced 1,382% year-over-year growth in February 2009, with the number of total unique visitors increasing from 475,000 in February 2008 to 7 million last month, according to Nielsen Online. This increase makes Twitter the fastest growing member community site for the month.

Zimbio and Facebook , which were the second and third-fastest growing communities, posted triple-digit growth, with the number of visitors to those sites increasing 240% and 228%, respectively.

Study finds word-of-mouth's impact on loyalty into the B2C wireless market

The study examined the financial impact of both positive and negative WoM, and highlighted the impact that customer loyalty and WoM can have on a company's brand and bottom line.

Download white paper

Source: The Wise Marketer and Satmetric

RT @mobile_drew A marketer w/out a mobile loyalty program in '09 or '10 will risk losing customers to competitors

Forrester Report Finds Retail Leads Loyalty Pack, But Channel Connections Still Missing

Retail was the clear winner in last week’s Forrester customer experience report, but its author sees a lot of room for improvement. Although the retail industry performed the highest out of 12 categories in using customer experience to stimulate loyalty, Forrester Senior Analyst Bruce Temkin said cross-channel touch points could make retailers better at loyalty marketing, if the customer experience was made a higher priority.

“Retailers have been operating with customer needs in mind for longer than any other business,” says Temkin. “But no one is really doing well across channels. Retailers still tend to set their web operations up in complete isolation from the other business units.”

The Forrester report “Customer Experience and Loyalty” examined the correlation between customer experience and loyalty across 12 industries: airlines, banks, cell phone service providers, credit card providers, hotels, insurance firms, Internet service providers, investment firms, medical insurance companies, PC manufacturers, retailers, and TV service providers. It looked at how three elements of customer experience (meeting needs, being easy to work with, and enjoyability) correlate with three components of loyalty (repurchase plans, reluctance to switch, and likelihood to recommend).

The report found the most direct connections between repurchasing and enjoyability as well as a clear link the most with the likelihood to recommend. It also turns out that industries have different loyalty profiles. For instance, retailers and health insurers can influence loyalty the most by meeting customer needs while banks and hotels can affect customer repurchase plans from all elements of customer experience.

Retailers scored the highest correlation between customer experience and loyalty in almost every category. The retail industry’s overall score was 81, with useful at 86, easy to use at 85 end enjoyable at 75.

Meeting customer needs were found to be the strongest link to repurchasing. For every industry except airlines, meeting needs had the highest (or was tied for the highest) correlation with consumers’ plans to make another purchase. The “easy to work with” category also has a strong link to repurchasing and recommendations.

Source : Retail Souce Point and Forrester

Baseball fans can score with Miller High Life Extras

The Extras loyalty program from Miller High Life, which allows consumers to earn reward points by purchasing specially marked packages of High Life and High Life Light, is now offering baseball-themed High Life merchandise.

In 1903, pitcher Cy Young won 28 games, Buck Freeman led the league with 13 home runs, and the Boston Americans (aka Boston Red Sox!) beat the Pittsburgh Pirates to win the World Series. That same year, Miller High Life made its debut, and the brand has enjoyed a strong connection with baseball ever since. "Extras has been a huge hit with beer drinkers since we launched it last spring, and we believe that offering exclusive High Life-themed baseball merchandise is just another way to keep the program fresh and add value for our loyal fans," says High Life Senior Brand Manager Kevin Oglesby. "From a High Life baseball jersey to a base-and-bat barstool, the Extras program offers something for all fans."

Miller High Life will partner with such baseball legends as Wade Boggs, Tony Perez, Ryne Sandberg and Fergie Jenkins, who will interact with fans during appearances at bars and stores while promoting the High Life Extras program.

"Fans have known for a long time that beer and baseball go together pretty darn well," said Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg. "Baseball fans will definitely be impressed with the merchandise High Life is offering through the Extras program."

Each bottle or can in eligible packaging will be worth 10 points, and consumers earning reward points can create an account and upload point codes at MillerHighLife.com, where they will be able to track points, and view and order the exclusive, limited-edition merchandise. Point totals needed to earn the baseball merchandise range from 2,500 for a High Life baseball hat to 27,500 for the base-and-bat barstool. Extras account members also can send e-cards to friends who are not already participating in the program and invite them to enroll. For each referred person who enrolls and participates, the referring consumer will receive 60 points.

Source: MillerCoors

Permission-based email aids loyalty to CPGs

The receipt of permission-based email from a consumer packaged goods company positively influences consumers' offline purchasing decisions, enhances the company's reputation and generates loyalty to its brands, according to research from loyalty marketing firm Epsilon.

Email communications elicit behaviour from consumers that is measurable by marketers as well as behaviour that is otherwise difficult to track. When asked how often consumers took the following actions as a direct result of receiving permission-based email from a CPG company, on a four-point scale, the survey revealed that:

• 91% of respondents downloaded or printed a coupon;
  
• 81% clicked on a link in an email to learn more;
  
• 76% tried a new product for the first time;
  
• 75% read company or brand content;
  
• 67% researched retail locations that carry the product;
  
• 66% ordered a product sample;
  
• 65% shared a coupon or forwarded the email;
  
• 65% purchased the product online;
  
• 34% typed or copied a URL directly into their browser.

The report has been made available for free download from Epsilon's web site - click here (PDF document; no registration needed).

Big Price Cuts Linked to Long-Term Brand Damage

Companies that lower the prices of their products during the recession may risk damaging long-term brand perceptions because suspicious consumers assume something is wrong with the product or brand if it’s being discounted.

Google TV Unveils Two New Reporting Functions

Google today announced two new reporting capabilities for its Google TV Ads service, bringing more data to a service already renowned for its metrics-heavy approach.

Everybody Loves Social Networking, Except Some Advertisers

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006974

How to Build a Personal and Business Following on Twitter

http://www.emarketingandcommerce.com/story/how-build-personal-and-business-following-twitter

Digital lifestyle tracking service could be a hit for mobile marketing initiatives

Digital lifestyle tracking service could be a hit for mobile marketing initiatives.

http://shortn.me/hb

This program allows users to stream any of the hundreds of thousands of songs available on YouTube to PCs

Built by a clever 15-year-old web developer, muziic.com allows users to stream any of the hundreds of thousands of songs available on YouTube directly to PCs (without fiddling with videos), where they can then be organized into an iTunes-like interface.

Check it out now before it's gone, as the site has yet to receive the blessing of Google, record companies, or the various rights holders to the songs.

Why Bad Times Nurture New Inventions

Has the Internet Made You More Productive? http://is.gd/nwv6