According to a study made by Security company Marshal, 29% of Internet users have bought something from an email spam. An amazing ratio. Though we can doubt about the relevancy of the study made using the answers of 600 respondents from the Marshal website, the interest about the reasons of such a high purchase ratio is noticeable. What can we take from the spam process experience and expertise? Read More

Google’s promise is to help you search better. eBay’s promise is to help you sell at a better price. Facebook’s promise is to help you connect online with your friends. Apple’s promise is to create a better experience (of computer/ music player/ mobile). Nike’s promise is to create a better experience when doing sports. Starbucks’ promise is to provide you with good coffee and cakes. All these companies and many others are able to keep their promises. Offline advertising for these companies are there to take your attention about their products. And that usually works. But online the problem isn’t the same and we can’t say online advertising is keeping its key promise. Read More

Consumers are key for companies. Key because they’re clients and best advocates of the brand. Traditional marketing and communication is meant to develop awareness and stimulate consumers to become customers through seeding value added to people buying the brand products. CRM is meant to increase loyalty by offering information and generating repeat business. In that process clients, prospects, consumers, and users are restricted to receivers role. When asked to contribute they’re always lead, and in a way not inviting to engage with the brand (answer a survey isn’t that much engaging). But as Trendwatching said, consumers are the global brain, and brand should do much more to leverage that community of theirs, that would definitly be a smart way to shorten decision making process, help out-of-the box thinking, and generate more proximity with people that can become their advocates if included in the ideation and service enhancement process. Here’s some ideas of how to leverage that untapped and smart resource. Read More

Reviews, suggestions, and conversation between consumers and brands are core business of social media. It’s an easy doing right now posting one’s opinion on a product, service or idea, using blogs, wikis, conversation platform, and obviously product review tools included in e-commerce platform. Which means there are negative and positive opinion posted on what companies are selling. And which also implies companies may be scepticals about social media since they don’t get the hand over the message but only become part of the discussion. Yet, as Joshua Porter explained why brands shouldn’t fear product reviews, companies shouldn’t fear social media because it’s in fact a huge opportunity to develop product/ service range, increase customer care quality and quicken innovation. Here are some thoughts and ideas about how to challenge consumers and turn their requests, suggestions, arguments, and negative opinions into interesting points to enhance your brand equity and customer loyalty. Read More