YOUTILITY

Why Smart Marketing Is About Help, Not Hype

The difference between helping and selling is just two letters. But those two letters are critically important to your company’s success.

You’re not competing for attention only against other, similar products. You’re competing for attention against everything. To win in this hyper-competitive environment, you must ask “How can we help?”

If you sell something, you make a customer today, but if you genuinely help someone, you create a customer for life. This is Youtility.

Includes interviews with dozens of companies practicing Youtility, and provides 6 blueprints for building Youtility in your company.

Available for pre-order soon (get up to 7 exclusive bonuses) at http://YoutilityBook.com
Campaign Testing and Optimization 15  |  Add Yours

Think Bottom Line, Not Top Line, on Social Media ROI

There’s been a lot of conversation lately about social media ROI but the hand-wringing about it is totally misplaced. True ROI (return on investment) calculations are possible in cause/effect marketing scenarios where you can isolate tactics and variables to determine incremental revenue generated. Today, the only marketing programs that can semi-reliably generate “real” ROI calculations are SEO, [...]

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PR 2.0 6  |  Add Yours

The Power of Truth, Woot-Style

On a recent trip to New York, I was pondering the future of the in-flight magazine and bemoaning its general editorial shoddiness when I stumbled upon an extraordinary interview with Matt Rutledge from Woot about their policy of telling the truth and acknowledging mistakes. (hat tip to US Airways Magazine) Since the first caveman painted [...]

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PR 2.0 13  |  Add Yours

An Amazing True Story of Cars, Bribes, and Customer Service

(Originally posted on Off Madison Ave blog) Earlier this year, I received a FedEx envelope unexpectedly. It was from Infiniti (Nissan Motors USA). I purchased an Infiniti EX in late December, 2007. Turns out, according to the letter enclosed in the FedEx, the window sticker on my vehicle listed a “rollover sensor” as standard equipment. [...]

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Social Media Marketing 19  |  Add Yours

Video Blog Post – 7 Deadly Sins of Social Media

My first video blog. Apologies for the audio quality. I’ll work on that for next time. Comments most welcomed on this first effort. Thanks as always, j Download the sins as a PDF>>

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Email Marketing Advice 7  |  Add Yours
PR 2.0 18  |  Add Yours

9 Ways to Humanize Your Brand (with real humans)

Many companies are reluctant to fully dive in to social media, either because they are afraid of losing control, or because they believe their customers aren’t using social media. The latter is especially prevalent among B2B companies, and when viewed from a purely numerical perspective they may be right. (photo by The Dana Files) An [...]

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PR 2.0 4  |  Add Yours

Jason Falls – The Twitter 20 Interview about Social Media and Public Relations

Featuring Jason Falls, the head of social media at branding agency Doe-Anderson, author of the Social Media Explorer blog, and all-around social media nice guy genius. Jason submitted himself to the rigors of the Twitter 20 interview (20 questions live on Twitter) on November 14, 2008. Excellent questions and comments from viewers throughout, too. Thanks to [...]

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PR 2.0 64  |  Add Yours

My Mom Thinks Chris Brogan Plays Hockey

I saw my mom the other day. She’s a pretty hip lady for 64. She was a high school teacher for about 30 years, and was always a student fave. Stylish. Knew the music. Knew the scene. Thought Patrick Swayze was hot.  Now, in her semi-retirement, she’s the editor for an online-only newspaper. She takes [...]

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Social Media Marketing 9  |  Add Yours

The Paradox of Social Media Control

As discussed recently in “Why Are We So Scared of Our Customers?” and “Presto, How Social Media Makes Bad News Good” I’m seeing the fear of negativity preventing more companies from embracing social media.  The typical social media objection is that if the company has a conversation with consumers in a public forum, the company [...]

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E-commerce 25  |  Add Yours

3 Reasons the Recession is Great News for Social Media

This recession is looking worse than Sylvester Stallone all roided up for that recent Rambo 14 (Rambo goes to the buffet for the Early Bird Special with some pals) movie. It’s going to be bad. But for social media, it just might be the best possible circumstance. Here’s why: 1. Smart Buying Consumer confidence is [...]

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