I often discuss books with our clients and business partners that I think can have a major positive impact on their businesses.  One title which has consistently been on the list for the last couple years is Joe Jaffe’s “Join the Conversation”.  His most recent book, “ Flip the Funnel”,  is equally powerful.    The assumption in this book is  that many traditional marketing approaches are getting it all wrong.  In other words,  the focus has been on customer Acquisition as opposed to customer Retention; on the fat side of the funnel, as opposed to the skinny one.

Jaffe passionately argues , and backs it  up with statistics, that investing in existing relationships is far more profitable than devoting the bulk of your budget to acquiring new customers.   “Retention is the new Acquisition”.

I know what you’re thinking – how can I possibly find the time to read another book?  Fear not,  we’ll do that for you, and more.  Below you will find a link to a video where Jaffe himself gives an overview of the book.

Length of the video – 4 minutes and 33 seconds.   The impact it will have on your bottom line – Priceless.

Here is the link to the video - http://bit.ly/beh1xP

Here is the link to the book – http://amzn.to/alaDJT

Just kidding. You know we love our clients. But someone, somewhere on the vast network we call the Internet, may be saying this about your company.  The better known your brand and your products, the greater the chance that someone is taking a pot shot at you.  The issue is not whether the criticism is justified but how quickly you find out about, and respond to, it.  The difference in finding out within hours as opposed to days or weeks can be measured in millions of dollars and, once in a while, can even become a matter of survival.

If your company was “slammed” for no good reason, you can set the record straight.  If the criticism is justified, you can fix it quickly and win points for your lightening-speed response and exemplary customer service — a perfect opportunity to make lemonade from the lemons you’ve been handed.

So how do we find out as soon as possible? By using a set of tools readily available online. We’ve covered some of these before, but they are worth mentioning again:

1. Google Alerts — http://www.google.com/alerts.  A content monitoring service, offered by the search engine company Google, that automatically notifies users when new content from news, web, blogs, video and/or discussion groups matches a set of search terms selected by the user.  The service is free with a Google account and is easy to set up.  The key is to set up alerts for numerous terms, including product names, as well as those of key executives.  I would even go as far as to suggest that one of your alert terms should be “your company name sucks”.  Most of our clients have been using Google Alerts for a while and we are working with them to gain even better leverage with this tool.

With Twitter growing by leaps and bounds on a daily basis, you absolutely have to monitor conversation in the Twitterverse.  Recent stats tell us that users currently generate 2 billion (that’s a “B”) per month.

I previously recommended in this space Tweet Beep (www.tweetbeep.com) which enables anyone to receive alerts by email whenever a specific word or phrase is tweeted on Twitter.  Here are a couple of other options for Twitter:

2.  Tweet Alarm – http://www.tweetalarm.com/

3.  Tweet Alerts – http://www.twitteralerts.net/.  With this service, you have a number of options when it comes to notifications, including SMS.

To see the effectiveness of Twitter as a customer response and service tool, Comcast is the classic example. Read the these stories and you’ll become a believer:

Savvy online service can win back customers – http://bit.ly/apZlyP

My @ComcastCares Customer Service Story – http://bit.ly/dqx3L7

As many of you know, I have long been a fan of podcasts as an effective marketing tool. My reasoning was, and continues to be, twofold:  First, anecdotal evidence demonstrates that a significant portion of your audience prefers to consume content by listening to it as opposed to reading it.  Second, many C-level decision-makers no longer read and review product and service options while in the office, where their time is at a premium, but rather while driving or working out.  In these latter settings, audio content trumps all other types of content for obvious reasons.
As our rationale was mostly based on anecdotal evidence, I am always on the lookout for science-based empirical evidence to buttress my thinking.  I recently came across a study from sparkinsight.com (see graphic below) that proves our podcast thesis – after two weeks, we remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, and 50% of what we see and hear. 

So, you ask, what is the best way to leverage the power of the spoken word? 

Here are two suggestions: 
1.  When promoting a new product or service, consider creating two short (15 minutes) podcasts: one with an internal expert and the second with a satisfied customer or partner.  The first positions your company as an expert or thought leader, while the second represents the third-party social proof for that positioning.  We call it the “1-2  integrated marketing punch”.
2.  If your company lists its management or partners with pictures and bios on its Web site, create a very short (5 minutes) podcast with each of them.
Remember: by simply adding a podcast to your marketing mix, you are doubling the chances that your audience will remember your message.
 
More Formats: Better Learning (2)
The second concept related to neuroscience is the idea of assisting people to interact with your content in multiple ways. The concept of “multimodal learning” explains that people are more likely to learn and retain information when it is presented in multiple modalities, such as written (visual) and aural (auditory) at the same time. Your content will get more attention if you offer people multiple formats by which they can consume it.