Superb internet marketing community & FREE industry reports (no catch!)

I wanted to draw you attention to a FREE resource for those of you who want to benefit from a community of the world’s digital marketing and ecommerce professionals. Econsultancy exists to help its members “sharpen their strategy, source suppliers, get quick answers, compare notes, help each other out and discover how to do everything better online.” I have to say that it is a great source of independent advice and insight on digital marketing and ecommerce.

imho there’s no shortage of marketing opinion online, but being ten years and with 71,000 marketers Econsultancy is pretty special.  Bronze membership is FREE and there is more info here.

These are complimentary reports you get for free upon joining (there’s another 20+ too!).  Great, er, value!

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Online PR Industry Benchmarking Report

By Michelle Goodall and Aliya Zaidi, December 2008

Overview Authors: Michelle Goodall and Aliya Zaidi Pages: 35 Features: Survey-based research about the Online PR Industry, with expert input from respected industry commentators.

Digital Outsourcing Survey Report

By Econsultancy, December 2008

This report, produced in association with Lemon Digital Production, is aimed at agencies who are interested in the business case and challenges associated with outsourcing digital work.

SEO Supplier Showcase November 2008

November 2008

Online Customer Engagement Report 2009

By Econsultancy, November 2008

The third annual Online Customer Engagement Report has been produced in partnership with cScape. This research is based on a survey of 1,300 respondents carried out in September and October 2008.

Email Marketing Briefing – November 2008

By Econsultancy, November 2008

This free, 12-page briefing contains a write-up of an E-consultancy roundtable on Email Marketing held in autumn 2008.

Comparison Shopping Engines Survey Report 2008

By Econsultancy, October 2008

This DoubleClick-sponsored research is based on a survey of retailers and agencies carried out in August and September 2008, with the aim of understanding more about the use of comparison shopping.

Paid Search Marketing Supplier Showcase October 2008

October 2008

Paid Search Briefing – October 2008

By Econsultancy, October 2008

This free, 12-page briefing contains a write-up of an E-consultancy roundtable on Paid Search.

Affiliate Marketing Briefing – October 2008

By Econsultancy, October 2008

This free, 11-page briefing contains a write-up of an E-consultancy roundtable on Affiliate Marketing.

Measurement, Analytics and Optimisation Briefing – October 2008

By Econsultancy, September 2008

This free, 12-page briefing contains a write-up of an E-consultancy roundtable on Measurement, Analytics and Optimisation.

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The Services Econsultancy Provide:

Reports: Econsultancy is an award-winning online publisher of reports covering best practice, user experience benchmarking, market data, supplier selection, template files, trends and innovation aimed at internet professionals who want practical advice on all aspects of e-business.

Training, Learning & Development: Econsultancy operates a highly popular training division, used by the world’s leading brands for staff education, both in-house and via public courses. We provide training across all areas of digital marketing and ecommerce and at all levels from accredited one day courses to formal qualifications including diplomas and a Masters in Digital Marketing.

Events: Econsultancy hosts over 100 events a year, including conferences such as the Online Marketing Masterclasses, Future of Digital Marketing and Digital Cream as well as regular Supplier Showcases, Roundtables, the annual Innovation Awards and a range of social events.

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Free memberships of marketing clubs, and online resources are ten a penny.  You just have to surf, or browse LinkedIn groups to see that.  But Econsultancy is very different.  I’d highly recommend you join if you are an internet professional who wants practical advice on all aspects of e-business.

Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Analyst, Analytics, Blogging, Branding, Business, Buzz, CRM, Customer Experience, Design, Direct Mail, Email, Events, Media, Mobile, Online, Planning, Research, SEO, SEO / SEM, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media, Strategy, Usability, User Generated Content, Viral, Web, Web2.0, digital, marketing, technology, web 2.0 , development, ecommerce, Econsultancy, Events, Free, learning, reports, Strategy, training

Your call may be recorded

You’ve probably heard it a thousand times.

“You’re call may be recorded and used for training purposes.”

I no longer believe it when I hear it.  And if I don’t believe it, I’d expect many others don’t either.

By all means record calls, make improvements: call centre representatives are a very important bridge to a brand.  But keeping these types of disclaimers on ALL of the time is not the right thing to do.  Far from it.  It’s a lazy and fake way of pretending that you care about customers – and it has a negative effect now.

Could a company be more insincere? If a company wants to try they might want to throw up a library shot of beautiful call centre representatives as a starter!

Filed under: Branding, Business, CRM, Customer Experience, Customer service, ideas, marketing , Branding, call recording, Customer service, training

Please help

Sport Relief

(I should apologise for bringing you here by illicit categorisation and tagging, but I won’t. You might have wasted just 10 seconds. Hopefully you will make the choice to change someone’s world in less than a minute).

Filed under: 2.0, ACL, Adobe, Advertising, Affiliate Marketing, Analyst, Analytics, Apple, Awards, BBC, Blog, Blogging, Blogroll, Books, Branding, Business, Buzz, CBS, CIM, CRM, Charity, Colour, Computer, Computing, Conversational marketing, Conversion, Cool, Corbis, Customer service, Data, Deloitte, Design, Direct Email, Direct Mail, EMI, Email, Entertainment, Entrepreneur, Events, Experiential, Facebook, Fairchild Semiconductor, Forrester, Fun, Gartner, Google, IBM, IODA, IT, IT Planning, Ideas and Riffs, Illusion, Imagery, Influence, Infrared, Job, Keywords, Knee, MIT, Mac, Measurement, Media, Microsoft, Mobile, Music, News, Online, Online Video, Open Social, PC, PR, Planning, Power 150, Printing, Public Relations, Punchstock, Quotes, RSS, Religion, Remarkable, Research, SEO, SEO / SEM, SPARQL, SQL, Salmon, Scene7, Search, Search Engine Optimisation, Second Chance Tuesday, Second Life, Semantic Web, Sinclair, Social Graphs, Social Media, Social Networking, Software, Sony BMG, Spam, Spectrum, Strategy, Surgery, Survival, TV, Tattoo, The Orchard, Tim Berners-Lee, Twitter, Usability, User Generated Content, Viral, Viral Coefficient, Virtual Worlds, WIFI, WIKI, WOM, Warner Music Group, Web, Web2.0, White Paper, Wired.com, Wordpress, Xerox, Xuuk, Yahoo!, YouTube, ZX, blogs, bob, copywriting, digital, dotcoms, garfield, iStock, ideas, illustration, last.fm, marketing, ogilvy, permission, photography, podcast, sport, startups, stock photography, technology, trust, venture capital, verge, web 2.0, webmasters, wi-fi, word of mouth , 2008, Advertising, Age 5-14, Animals, Anime, Announcements, Answered, Art, Articles, Barack, Basketball, Bible, Big, Big Questions, Blog, Blogging, blogs, Books, Business, Charity, Children, China, Christianity, Church, clinton, Club, Comedy, Commentary, Community, Crime, Culture, Current Events, Daily, Democrats, Design, Economics, Economy, Education, Election 2008, Elections, Eliot Spitzer, English, Entertainment, Environment, Events, Faith, Family, Fashion, Fiction, Film, Food, Friends, Fun, Funny, Games, God, Government, Health, Hillary, Hip-hop, History, Home, Humor, ideas, India, inspiration, internet, Iraq, Islam, Jesus, John McCain, Journal, Kids, Leadership, Life, Links, Love, marketing, Marriage, Me, Media, Misc, Miscellaneous, Money, Movies, Music, Musings, My Life, Nature, News, Obama, Opinion, Parenting, penguin, People, Personal, Philosophy, photography, photos, Physics, Pictures, Poems, Poetry, Political, Politics, Pop culture, Prayer, Projects, Psychology, Questions, Quotes, Race, Ramblings, Random, Rants, Recipes, Reflections, Relationships, Religion, Research, Review, Reviews, School, Science, Sewing, Sex, Shopping, Society, Software, Spiritual, Spirituality, Sports, Stories, Stuff, technology, television, The Page, Theology, Thoughts, Travel, trends, TV, Unanswered, United states, Update, USA, video, Videos, web 2.0, Welcome, Women, work, World, Writing, YouTube

Outgoing only

I am sure everyone has received one of these before:

This is an “outgoing only” email address. If you ‘reply’ to this message by simply selecting the reply button, we will not receive your additional comments.

Sounds like a wasted opportunity to start a conversation if you ask me.

Seth Godin reminds us that if you think interacting with customers is expensive, driving costs down is a good thing, and getting people to go away is beneficial – you’re probably toast.

Filed under: CRM, Customer service, Direct Email, Email, Ideas and Riffs, ideas, marketing , CRM, Customer Relations, Email, Ongoing only email, seth godin

CMR – Customer Managed Relationships

I wrote about Customer Managed Relationships (CMR) here back in July.

The debate still goes on here and here. I find it interesting that web 2.0 technologies are very aligned to this ethos, and that in the context of B2B, web 2.0 may help organisations better understand their customers – and at least partially ‘deal with’ or ‘embrace’ the fact that customers (or consumers) are in control.

There has been much debate about the relevance of web 2.0 in the commercial sector. The news concerning Youtube, Google’s Open Social, Facebook & Microsoft has further fanned the flames as B2B marketing managers crave to identify the real value that web 2.0 will bring to the B2B space; over and above standard user generated content and viral video to name just two spheres of influence web 2.o has garnered.

And so I wonder if establishing a real monetary link between web 2.0 and CRM is what will really create the breakthrough in mindset that seems to be needed to tip the balance?

To me there are too many advertising agencies that are still looking to apply new technology against an old paradigm – where advertising and publishing rules.

That is clearly not the case. Customers manage relationships whether advertisers and brand managers like it or not. But perhaps it is time to prove it?

Filed under: 2.0, Advertising, B2B, Business, CRM, Customer service, Facebook, Ideas and Riffs, Open Social, Social Media, Strategy, User Generated Content, Viral, ideas, marketing , B2B, Customer managed relationships, Facebook, Open Social, web 2.0

How Apple creates loyal customers

Inside CRM editors have listed 12 effective strategies that Apple uses to create loyal customers.

In essence ‘complete solutions’, ‘familiar formats’ and the ‘cool factor’, keep customers coming back – but the full list is worth reading.

Filed under: Apple, Branding, CRM, Cool, Customer service, marketing

Customer Managed Relationships

Seth’s low key post “CRM is dead” – has really touched a nerve with me. I’ve been thinking about it a lot since.

It might be more than just semantics says Godin. I think he was right. And some.

CMR is our version of CRM – just a slight nuance regarding our philosophy that our guests invite us into their lives and ultimately manage our presence/relationship with them says Disney.

Tech Vendors in the CRM space needed a jolt in the arm, and CMR might still be it. Trouble is their technologies will most likely need to be re-architected, re-designed and re-thought out to actually meet the functional requirements that this shift in emphasis would dictate.

I hope that if CMR does take off, it doesn’t end up getting ruined by CRM technology vendors.  But I do think the time for this is now.

Filed under: 2.0, CRM, Customer service, Strategy, ideas

A Potted History of B2B High-Tech Marketing

A while ago, brands were communicated simply by ‘campaigns’. Blast a message out a gazillion times and the message would hopefully ’stick’, and hey presto…..more sales. A consistent monologue was established. In this era, messages and media were key. Communication was the order of the day. But times change.

A short time ago, brands were communicated via integrated marketing ‘programmes’. Consumers were treated equally across different channels. Messages and creative were executed consistently – and a consistent ‘dialogue’ was established. Channels, dialogue and CRM were key. Building a relationship was the order of the day. But times change.

Today, long lasting ‘experiences’ are required for brands to differentiate and lead. And that means that the bar has been raised yet again. Today’s focus therefore? ‘Experience’ is the order of the day.

‘Experience’ is a process of interaction between consumers and a brand that creates new brand meaning.

Experience takes saying and listening and adds a third activity: ‘making things happen‘.

Is you B2B High-Tech Marketing making things happen?

Filed under: 2.0, Advertising, Affiliate Marketing, B2B, Blog, Blogging, Branding, Buzz, CRM, Customer service, Direct Email, Direct Mail, Experiential, Ideas and Riffs, Measurement, Planning, Strategy, Viral, blogs, ideas, marketing, word of mouth