Posted in community, consumer engagement, customer engagement, donor engagement, follower, marketing, social network on Aug 17th, 2010
I just got back from a short vacation house boating with my fraternity brothers. Had you asked any one of us 30 years ago if we could envision ourselves as old, fat, bald guys who float around together in a doublewide on a barge, you would have gotten a lot of laughs. Yet, we are [...]
Posted in banking, branding, community, consumer engagement, consumer perception, customer engagement, customer interaction, donor engagement, follower, fundraising, leader, marketing, network, social marketing, social network, spur communications on Jul 29th, 2010
I used to skydive. If you haven’t tried it, I recommend it. It’s fun. So when my son told me he and his friends were going skydiving I was O.K. with it. I checked out the airport and club behind his back just to make sure it was fine. After all I am his dad. [...]
Posted in banking, community, consumer engagement, consumer perception, customer engagement, customer interaction, donor engagement, financial services, follower, fundraising, individualized marketing, investment, lifecycle, marketing, network, non profit, personalized marketing, social marketing, social media, social network, twitter on Jul 27th, 2010
Frontline associates are often the most frequent point of human contact provided by an organization. I’m talking about folks like the teller at your bank and the undergrad working the alumni association telethon. They’re the tip of the spear, yet they are also among the least empowered in the organization. Their roles are viewed as [...]
Posted in branding, community, consumer engagement, consumer generated content, consumer perception, customer engagement, customer interaction, follower, marketing, network, social branding, social marketing, social media, social network, twitter, web on Jul 19th, 2010
I spend a lot of time negotiating between two camps of clients — those who want to embrace social media and those who don’t. A lot has been written about the pros and cons for every business sector. The bottom line is it has been around longer than you think and isn’t going away any [...]
Posted in branding, community, consumer behavior, consumer engagement, consumer perception, customer engagement, customer interaction, customer relationship management, marketing, marketing innovation, network, seth godin, social branding, social marketing, social media, social network, transformation on Jul 14th, 2010
This is a simple, straightforward question. Is your first touch selfish? Is the first contact that you have with your prospects about you or about them? It’s surprising how many businesses only realize this is important when they are asked. Even then, some folks never get it.
In 1999, Seth Godin published Permission Marketing: turning strangers [...]
Posted in SPURspectives, banking, branding, community, consumer behavior, consumer engagement, consumer perception, customer engagement, customer interaction, financial services, follower, leader, lifecycle, marketing, marketing budget, marketing innovation, social branding, social marketing, social network, spur communications, transformation on Jul 13th, 2010
Regular readers of SPURspectives know that Spur Communications provides marketing services for financial services and community benefit organizations. We are routinely asked to help with brand development. So, we spend a lot of time asking why — Why do you exist? Why do you matter? Why should someone care? As you can imagine, our nonprofit [...]
Posted in SPURspectives, community, consumer behavior, consumer engagement, customer engagement, follower, imitation, leader, marketing, network, seth godin, social network, transformation on Jul 7th, 2010
Championship competitions are great for studying the microcosm of team cohesion. The World Cup may be the greatest study of all due to its global reach. This Cup’s German team is showing something very unique and I think reflective a change in how the world does business.
Teams have long been assembled like armies, with top [...]
Posted in branding, community, consumer behavior, consumer engagement, consumer perception, customer engagement, customer interaction, donor engagement, marketing, transformation on Jun 29th, 2010
There is a major intersection that a friend of mine cannot drive through. It isn’t blocked or under construction. There’s nothing technically wrong with the intersection. It is simply that 3 out of 4 of the corners have businesses with horrible logos on their signs. He’s not a design snob. The 3 bad logos are [...]
Posted in community, consumer behavior, consumer engagement, customer engagement, customer interaction, donor engagement, follower, leader, marketing, marketing innovation, social marketing on Jun 20th, 2010
There are three big questions that drive a lot of human behavior — what, how and why. Finding answers to them is key to most of your personal and business life. Since much of the world outside of the U.S. understands soccer to be a metaphor for life, I thought I would look at these [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, banking, branding, community, consumer engagement, consumer generated content, consumer perception, customer interaction, follower, investment, lifecycle, marketing, marketing budget, marketing innovation, network, social branding, social marketing, social media, transformation on Jun 16th, 2010
The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is an unprecedented tragedy. The extent of damage to the ecosystem, economy and lives of countless people is staggering. But it has also been enlightening. Our always on connectivity, social networks and the instantaneous spread of news by citizen journalists has shown this crisis to be [...]
