As usual, the The Yale Customer Insights Conference 2016 was great. Leading practitioners and academics came together to tackle some of the most challenging customer insights problems of our time. This as technology moves at warp speed and entire business models get wiped out in a couple of years. And customer behavior changes more rapidlyContinue reading ““What is your brand mission? ” ask experts at the Yale Customer Insights Conference”
Author Archives: StratoServe
Drones for commercial use up ten times in one year- pizza delivered by drone?
The drone industry is booming. And the number of companies authorized to use drones for commercial drones is up from 499 to over 5000 in just one year according to the NBC Today show. The number of personal drones registered has risen to over a million in the USA. Currently the Xponential 2016 Conference andContinue reading “Drones for commercial use up ten times in one year- pizza delivered by drone?”
Who is your customer?… and what does she value most
You have a great product and you have some great customers – and you want to expand your market ( don’t we all want that ?). You try various things including print and digital ads, cold calling, trade shows, sales pitches etc. but seem to be stuck in a rut. Talking to many businesses particularlyContinue reading “Who is your customer?… and what does she value most”
Why value and relevance is so important in Google AdWords and Email Marketing
As Google AdWords users already know the link between keywords—>ad text—-> landing page needs to be really tight and focused on giving value to your customer who is searching. Thus someone looking for “mother’s day roses” should be ideally seeing an ad that says “mother’s day roses ” and lands the visitor on the rosesContinue reading “Why value and relevance is so important in Google AdWords and Email Marketing”
Marketing vs. Sales- What’s the difference?
The Marketing vs. Sales difference is a crucial one for all businesses to understand. To simplify: Sales is trying to sell what you have. Sales followed from the production era where in the early part of the 20th century, entrepreneurs like Henry Ford famously produced only one color of car (black) and could bring downContinue reading “Marketing vs. Sales- What’s the difference?”
Think of your first home purchase- to better understand your customer journey
Marketers of complex high value products and services have a hard time in grasping the learning process of the buyer. Here are some quotes we have heard from businesses about their prospects and customers over the years
Comparing the first date with the sales funnel stages
This is like saying that every first date from digital dating sites (eg. eHarmony) results in marriage. And the marriage analogy is huge in marketing theory. Our favorite is by Dwyer,Schurr and Oh (1987). They debunk the marketing myth of the”one night stand” in favor of the paradigm of”long term marriage.” Just as a marriage takes place after much due diligence on both sides, so does complex B2B and B2C purchases. Lisa Gevelber of Google explains how one customer searches 900 times, at different websites,before deciding to lease a particular car.Read: The Car-Buying Process: One Consumer’s 900+ Digital Interactions.
Why are people suspicious of innovation in organizations?
CEO’s know that their organizations must innovate to stay relevant and succeed. Other functional heads (CxO’s) also understand the innovation imperative. And this applies to the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) ,Chief Supply Officer (CSO) or the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) etc. These organizational leaders cannot understand why getting a new thing started is so difficult. And why they do not see the benefits flowing in- simply because of employee reluctance in implementation and “buy-in.
Choose between market share or customer satisfaction- not both
If you have satisfied customers – you would feel that word of mouth including social media should help get more market share. “It’s all about happy customers” …..Well that is not true. Based on data for 200 companies between 1994- 2006 for 800,000 customers from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI) there are some interestingContinue reading “Choose between market share or customer satisfaction- not both”
Dealing with the power and politics of B2B buying centers
We get frequent questions from innovative solution sellers about how to deal with the power and politics of B2B Buying Centers. This is after you have started talking with people at a prospective customer organization. And yet a deal doesn’t seem to be coming through.Here is our take and we hope this makes our dear readers feel better: