Tom Peters: Customer Service Story

Here is a good customer service/buzz story on the Tom Peters blog. Also, admire the number of buzz builders who were on top of it and wished him a happy birthday in the comments. Now if you are smart, put it on your calendar and mail him something next year. That is one better than a blog comment.

Fortune Innovation Blog

There is a new blog from Fortune called Innovation. They emailed me and asked me to post something about it. The email was from an Ad agency and the person who sent me the message clearly read my blog and knew I would be interested. The key here is this. Regardless of size it does not hurt to ask. Some people will post and others will not, but just being very straight forward and politely asking will yield results. The blog is fairly new, but I am sure it will be interesting over time. We are rebranding our parent company as an innovation laboratory, with a new website launch this week, so they hit a cord with me.

Media Cloud - Part Two

The previous post I talked about Media Clouds as something that obscures your message, such as a disaster. I forgot one that is not media, but can obscure your Buzz Marketing efforts if you are not careful. This year we managed to plan a seminar on the day that most grade school kids were going back to school. You may not think that matters, but you would be surprised how many people said they wanted to come but were taking off time to get their kids off to school and be there when they got home. We rescheduled.

Word of Mouth & Media Clouds

So you think you have the perfect word of mouth marketing campaign planned? Make sure there are no clouds to get in the way. Regardless of the marketing format, keep Media Clouds in mind. Media Clouds are news that obscures the vision of the normally approachable media and public. Today is election day, and I was going to send some things out. Then I realized those people are involved in politics and there is no way they would pay attention to my message today. Unless I can tie my message to the cloud, there is no chance they will notice it, let alone talk about it. What are some other bigger Media Clouds?

• Disasters, such as the Hurricanes - One person I know postponed his marketing plan by two months
• Holidays
• War News - especially when something new has happened
• Local News - Such as a company closure
• Competitor Marketing Push - Don't do something right on their heels that may get them noticed.

If you can tie your message to the cloud, it could result in more exposure. If you cannot do this, postpone your effort a short while to not get lost in the fog.

What is the most important question you can ask when doing something new?

You will not get great Buzz Marketing results by playing catch up with your competition. Buzz Marketing is Innovative Marketing. It is doing something different with your product or with your message which gets noticed and talked about. The most important question you can ask when beginning something new is this: How do we leap ahead? All too often companies are playing catch up with their competition, imitating what appears to be working for them. Instead of trying to catch the competition, get a group together and brainstorm on how to leap ahead. When you leap ahead with a product or with your marketing message, you will create buzz because you will be seen as an innovator. The further ahead you jump, the more buzz that will result.

Buzz with New Hires

The roll of HR in Buzz Marketing is greater than you would think. New hires, you hope, are energetic and excited about their new job. Many companies require new salesman to contact all their family, friends and ex coworkers in an effort to get early sales. This same emphasis can be put on all new hires if you make the goal a little buzz, instead of closing sales. Here are some ideas you can do with new hires to get them involved with creating some buzz in those first few months.

• Letters to family and friends, letting them know what they are doing now and inviting them to stop by, if appropriate.
• If they left their last job on good terms, put together a little after work party between some ex coworkers and new coworkers.
• Do a press release on the new hire.
• Get a mentor from outside the company to support them through this transition. (Think of this as an excuse to call some people and let them know you are growing, plus help the new employee expand their network.)
• Have the new hire update all of their online profiles with new job info.
• Contact their alumni association and let them know that you have just hired on of their graduates.
• Help the new hire write a stunning email signature and send out announcements of their new job to all of their contacts.

New hires have a honeymoon period where they are excited about the job and will do most things asked. Start the emphasis on Buzz early and they will continue it as a part of their everyday job.

The Psychology of Criticism

A professor and I were emailing back and forth debating the value of online criticism. He tells me there are sites where students can openly bash professors with no one moderating the site. Many professors are not happy about this. I do not want to discuss the pro's and con's. Obviously, like it or not, you cannot stop it. It is WOM that is recorded for the world to see. It did get me thinking about the psychology of the situation. If I were to bash SBC, it is a large brand and no one feels it is a personal attack. When a politician is criticized, they have usually built up a thick skin. However, there are a lot of people out there not used to taking criticism. If a professor goes onto a board and sees 30 good comments on his ability and 3 bad, he will be upset about the three bad. They will seem personal to him. However, the public will go on and be able to do the math. We have all become statisticians and can quickly skim eBay feedback, web stats and other sources of information and we expect there to be some negative. The question is, what do the bad say and what is the ratio. Each of us has a different tolerance for risk, but we have become as accustom to calculating risk with online criticism as we are at measuring up a gorge to leap across.

Battle of the Titans: + WOM vs. - WOM

WOM (Word of Mouth) Happens. If you are lucky, it happens in a positive way and you reap unexpected benefits. If you are smart, it is part of your PR and Marketing and you make it happen and amplify the volume. If you are a stagnant giant, there may be very little talk about you , even though everyone knows who you are. (Some of our research found almost no mention of big brands that are just part of the landscape.) If you have an inferior brand, poor customer service or a Monopoly (Which means you have both), you will go under or get steadily increasing negative word of mouth. What about the less obvious but more prevalent example? A small to medium sized business that is just fine. Not extrordinary, not spectacular... just fine. Even if you do not think you need a WOM Strategy, you do. Why do you buy fire insurance? Do you know for a fact that your business will eventually burn down? Only if you are planning on starting the fire. Positive WOM started now is an insurance policy against negative WOM that could occur in the future. It only takes one service rep with a headache to be rude to the wrong uber connected person to start a negative WOM fire. It is a lot better if the Internet is already full of great stories about you. Better when there are already advocates walking around singing your praise. Good WOM is not only a benefit today, it is also insurance for the future.

Old Buzz and Customer Service

Today I was at the Celebrate Success Akron Business Conference where Buzzoodle was nominated as a local success story. (Yes, we nominated ourselves, that is how you create buzz, you step up and tell people about yourself.) Ron Finklestein did a great job as he does every year. The Keynote Speaker was Paul Clark, President, Northern Ohio National City Bank. He did a nice job but I am always on the lookout for valuable buzz info, and he had one story that is great. How important is customer service to your organization? You may be thanked by your grandchildren for it. Something like 100 years ago, there was something about bank holidays and no bank could process checks. First National Bank was not as big back then, nor was one of their little clients called Ford. Henry Ford called up and talked to a teller and they agreed to not honor the bank holiday and process the checks. To this day, Ford is their client. Paul Clark stood up there, looked to the sky, and thanked the wisdom of that teller many years ago. (I am writing this from memory, so if you want the exact facts, you may want to contact Paul.) The take away is this: Someone helped a 12 year old Bill Gates open his first savings account. If that person is not still his banker, they screwed up. Make everyone feel special.

Get Eight Year Olds to Evaluate Your Story

I have an eight year old brilliant daughter. Tonight as I watched my wife quiz her on what she had just read, I realized that she remembers the fun parts of the stories. Sometimes she misses the point of the history lesson, but the cool parts are ingrained in her head. If I spent twenty minutes telling her about insurance, she would not remember a thing. If I told her about how someone got hurt and an insurance company paid the family a million dollars and they were able to get the horse they always wanted, she would remember it very well. The point is this: Craft your business stories as if you are telling them to an eight year old. Sure, adults will usually pay attention better and remember more 15 minutes later, but a month from now I know I am not going to remember anything but the cool stuff that an eight year old would remember. Want to know if your story is cool? Test it on some kids.

Any Given Wednesday

Orchestrating a perfectly timed Buzz campaign is possible, but more often then not, Buzz happens on its own schedule. That is why Buzzoodle advocates building buzz with as many people as possible on an ongoing basis. Employees that become advocates of where they work add value to the organization in addition to their normal, everyday job. This Wednesday, an article I wrote from my laptop in bed one evening created a lot of Buzz when Seth Godin read it and linked to it. I did not have to email him, nor spend lots of time crafting the article. For whatever reason, it resonated with him a little more than other stuff we may have published and he has read. Which gets us back to the central theme of Buzzoodle. On any given Wednesday, any seemingly minor Buzz attempt can produce extraordinary results. The more voices that produce the Buzz, the more likely it is that something will reach and resonate with people that can influence others.

How often does a President talk about a Brand?

Being the punch line to a CNN article is not bad Buzz.

"Si, Timex," Bush said, thrusting out his wrist to show off a timepiece that had his middle initial, W, on the face. "But I'm not supposed to be endorsing products." - CNN

How do you get people to talk about you even if they are not paid to or supposed to? Good Brand, remarkable product and reporters that ask the right questions.

Why Do Influential People Blog?

Influential People are blogging more because it is an easy way to publish their opinions, be more influential and connect better with their audience. Influential people blog because it allows them to broadcast their message and extend their influence. It is a way to build a loyal following and in a few minutes, effect what many people think and do. Even if I am a huge fan of a particular influential person, television and print is not a good medium for me to follow them effectively because I cannot just turn on the TV or leaf though all the print magazines on my own time each day and find out what my favorite influencer is thinking or saying. In the past, many influential people have been part of organizations that have had websites, but because of the professional polished nature of the website, they could not easily state their opinions openly and regularly. Now that corporate blogging has hit the mainstream, many more influential people are blogging and creating a following outside of the corporate website. Any author publishing non-fiction better have a blog or they are going to disappoint their readers. Innovators have blogs to talk about their passion for their innovations. VC’s now seem to all have blogs. This gives everyone access to people that can create buzz for them if they can get their attention. Blogging is easy and it is perfectly acceptable to write quick comments that do seem like a great deal of work. It is the perfect medium for the influential person. One question you may ask yourself is this. Which came first, the chicken (influential person) or the egg (the blog)? If someone is even moderately influential and they begin blogging on a regular basis in a focused way on a topic that people care about, they will find that their level of influence goes up each month. Eventually, their blog may eclipse the other things that first gave them influence, because the blog can be accessed daily at a reader’s leisure. Whether you are an influential person today or want to be an influential person tomorrow, blogs are a great way to capture a larger audience with a minimal effort towards crafting your message and making you accessible.

Buzz Announcements

Today I see that two different people we know have gotten mentioned on two different blogs of note. Hats off to both. A while back Buzzoodle suggested that "Selling is Dead" authors work to get mentioned on Seth Godin's Blog. They wrote to him, they mailed him something, sent him a copy of the book and met him at a conference recently. Today Seth mentioned them and I am sure they are enjoying a big bump in traffic. I am also sure Seth would not have mentioned them unless he really liked the book. I also noticed our good friend David Lorenzo got noticed by Keith Ferrazzi's Blog. I cannot take credit for any of it, but I want to point it out as a great buzz example. Keith's Book, Never Eat Alone, is great. I am also reading an advanced copy of David's book and enjoying it. It is a must read for personal brand building and career planning.

Create Advocates

Some people may hear "Word of Mouth Marketing" and think that it is a difficult thing to accomplish. How do you just get 1000's of people talking about you out of thin air, they will ask? I run into people all of the time that want to sell me something but never take the time to find out if I am not more suited to be an advocate of theirs. There is no one way to create advocates. It is an attitude and the more people in your organization that understand the recruit advocates attitude, the more successful you will be as an organization.

Here is a list of ways to recruit advocates:

• Help other people be successful
• Superior Customer Service
• Superior Product with unexpected benefits
• Do the unexpected and make someone's day
• Publicly recognize other people
• Introduce people that you know that should know each other
• Be open, honest and human
• Ask people what it would take to have them recommend you or introduce you to their friends
• Constantly perfect your networking and communication efforts

What do you talk about and why? Use the comments to tell everyone what makes you advocate a product or service.