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
Blogging and Content Creation 46  |  Add Yours

Can Spam Survive in a Social Media World?

Guest post by Indra Gardiner (@bgindra), President of Bailey Gardiner in San Diego. An award-winning PR and marketing pro, she leads BG’s social media efforts and writes on their Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid Blog. There’s always someone who wants to ruin it for everyone else. Know what I mean? And in the world of social [...]

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Guest Posts 47  |  Add Yours

Is Social Media Now Anti-Social?

Guest post by Andrew Freeman (@andrewfreeman), an online Campaign Manager and Media Planner for Sitewire, where he is also a regular blog contributor. Andrew loves marketing, psychology and all things digital, his musings can be read at www.strategicality.com. I am going to go out on a limb and say that I think social media is [...]

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Email Marketing Advice 36  |  Add Yours

Is Zappos’ Email as Good as Their Social Media?

Guest post by David Hibbs, lifecycle marketing manager for integrated marketing firm Off Madison Ave. He specializes in developing strategies to reach the right customer, at the right time, with the right message. I’m a big fan of Zappos.com. They have personality, transparency, and the willingness to try new things (see every social media case [...]

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Email Marketing Advice 44  |  Add Yours

May I Contact You Please? The Evolution of Permission

Guest post by Doug Wick (@dougwick), who thinks a lot about marketing and is a Director of Business Development for Powered, a social marketing company in Austin, TX. He writes frequently for Powered’s blog, The Engaged Consumer, and at DougWick.com. In the past decade of direct marketing online, the focal point has become contacting consumers [...]

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Blogging and Content Creation 81  |  Add Yours

Audit Your Intellectual Capital – 7 Ways to Find Your Stories

Guest post by Elizabeth Sosnow (@elizabethsosnow), Managing Director of BlissPR, a New York City based public relations firm. She develops and supervises strategic communications programs for major companies in professional and financial services, with a particular emphasis on the legal, consulting and insurance industries. Boy gets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy slips on banana peel, [...]

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Guest Posts 78  |  Add Yours

Use Online Listening for Competitive Research

Guest post by Mike Corak (@mikecorak) who oversees strategic planning, Web development, and marketing services for Tempe, Arizona integrated agency Off Madison Ave. Are your customers telling you everything you need to know to improve the bottom line? Conducting primary market research and audience research, and purchasing secondary studies are fundamental ways communicators inform and [...]

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Guest Posts 8  |  Add Yours

9 Things to Do When I’m Gone

This morning, I’m leaving with the family on a 2-week vacation of Denmark and Norway. We’re doing a home exchange, and a lovely family from Aalborg, Denmark will be inhabiting Convince & Convert global headquarters in Flagstaff. (We’ve done the exchange thing a few times via homeexchange.com and really enjoy it. If you have any [...]

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PR 2.0 106  |  Add Yours

A Social Media Gun to the Head

I’ll admit it. I fish on Twitter. Sometimes, I’ll talk about a brand just to see if they’re listening. Too often, they’re not. Or, maybe they’re listening, but not responding. Some companies seem to have a policy of responding to positive comments, but not responding to negative comments. I think this falls into the “we [...]

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PR 2.0 133  |  Add Yours

4 Brand-Saving Recommendations for Social Media Crisis Management

Is today your Domino’s? Social media can both create and solve crises, and the incredibly fluid nature of social conversations requires brands to be on a constant state of readiness. In April, two Domino’s employees created a foolish and disgusting video, and posted it to YouTube, setting off a firestorm of coverage on Twitter. It [...]

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Conferences and Events 58  |  Add Yours

Advanced Social Media Synergies

Last week, I was part of a panel discussion on how travel and tourism organizations can move beyond the typical Facebook and Twitter accounts to take their social media efforts to the next level. Part of the annual Arizona Governor’s Conference on Tourism, I was joined on the panel by the excellent Angela Berardino from [...]

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