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.

Five Questions to ask to maximize the impact of your digital marketing spend

Too many marketers don’t seem to consider their internal organizational processes as they devise digital marketing campaigns. The customer journey continues after reaching your website.Here are some quick questions to ask if you want to get more bang for your digital buck :

[ Note: This post was published on March 3, 2016. It is updated on March 8, 2021 with a new image and the idea that you really get customer impact when you consider her entire journey that includes after arriving at your website.]

Negative Online Reviews:Customers check “What’s the worst that can happen?”

Winter Marketing Academic Conference(#WinterAMA16) involved  a lot of discussion about the impact of online negative reviews on customers. Researchers have been doing massive work with lots of data to examine: Are negative reviews for your business catastrophic? There is cheerful news for all organizations who feel bad about a few negative reviews out there. Now,Continue reading “Negative Online Reviews:Customers check “What’s the worst that can happen?””

Don’t organize your website by your organization structure: 5 tips for effective website stuctures

This post was originally published on February 22, 2016. Since then we have great interest from our readers on How to organize a website? We also look at various Google Analytics reports for different types and sizes of organizations and are surprised at how the website structure does not seem to address the interests of stakeholders. This post is updated on March 9, 2021 with a new image and some additional explanation. We hope will help all businesses improve their website organization to try and speak to each category of stakeholders. This should in turn improve the impact of all websites as we come out of the pandemic.

Peak-End Rule and Customer Experience

According to the peak-end rule customers think back on their experience in terms peaks and ending. Thus, if during a service encounter there is a delightful experience and the service experience ends on a positive note the overall recollection is positive. Such a customer is likely to refer customers, like your business on Facebook. It does not matter if there was a peak negative experience (as illustrated in the graphic) that is lower than the peak positive experience

Why build a brand?

All advertising should result in immediate sales is the underlying expectation. The expectation is unrealistic and we try to explain why building a brand is important with these examples.

Customer knowledge and stage of sales funnel for complex solutions

Complex solutions and offerings are by definition well..complex…. and difficult to market.To us complex solutions are those that are difficult to explain in less than 2 minutes to a qualified prospect. Complex solutions also tend to be new to the market and sometimes new to the world. Sometimes complex solutions involve integrating several existing productsContinue reading “Customer knowledge and stage of sales funnel for complex solutions”

The comfort of a daily budget in Google AdWords

A budget is critical in managing the calories you eat, your personal finances or the line item budget of your organization.  You are never completely sure that you are within budget on a daily basis. Not so with Google AdWords where you can set a daily budget. But first about budgets in  food and finances:Continue reading “The comfort of a daily budget in Google AdWords”

Fiat needs re-positioning after Pope’s endorsement

We had celebrated the election of Pope Francis in an earlier post and it is a joy to see the”kindness” impact he has been having in the world for not just Catholics, but all people. The Papal visit to the US created  an amazing buzz  and his using a Fiat is a big celebrity endorsementContinue reading “Fiat needs re-positioning after Pope’s endorsement”