I was talking to a good friend today looking to redesign his company's web site. He got proposals from three agencies. His director of marketing evaluated them and their proposals. What I didn't see in the evaluation were the GOALS they are trying to reach and OBSTACLES most important to overcome. Matty (my co-founder at Spinach) and I think in terms of Goals, Obstacles and Hypothesis (GOH). An agency is a hypothesis to overcome an obstacle(s)... to reach a goal. This is beca

I just read a fascinating global study on what CEOs think of Marketers, by the Fournaise Marketing Group. Some of the interesting...

“What are you doing now?” That is the question facing you every time you open Facebook, Twitter or other social networks asking for a status update. Through follows, fans and likes, you are connected to people, brands and content. Web and mobile devices ensure you are constantly connected and empowered to create your own content. Brands are starting to display their Facebook URL and Twitter names at the tops of their sites. And thus, the explosion of social experiences is

First, the good news. Brands are starting to ‘listen’ to what people are saying. There are great listening and social media management platforms available, such as Spredfast (plug disclosure…I’m an advisor). However, it’s typically a few people inside the company that are paying attention to user generated content. There’s still a long way to go to make this listening penetrate the depths of an organization to achieve what I call “Customer Oxygen”. Then, there’s the analytics

I’ve had a lot of conversations lately about the strategy of group buying sites (or daily deals, flash sales, etc.). Groupon is the leader in this space…so much the word is becoming a verb. The questions I often hear are: How do you know if Groupon (and group buying deals) are right for a type of business? What are the factors that make Groupon a profitable strategy? How do you evaluate and analyze the profitability of Groupon? Already there are a lot of competitors with Grou

Last week I presented on a panel with Professor Arturo Perez-Reyes (UC Berekeley) at an event in San Francisco we put on with Jupiter...

What a dilemma! You are asked to reduce budget, cut costs, reduce expenses. However, you need your BEST to gain market share, compete for customer dollars and emerge from the recession as a winner. You need the best employees, technology, service, partners, vendors, and agencies so you can outsmart and out-execute competition. You need the best to drive demand when marketing rules are being reinvented by customer conversations. You need the best because, more than ever befor

Let's consider how businesses are run. Businesses are made up of process, policies, people and technologies. Results of anything are analyzed on how it impacts the P&L, in an effort to increase the predictability of results. Efficiency is measured and improved, with practices such as Six Sigma. Prioritization is ruthless as everyone has more to do in a growing (or struggling) company. People have objectives, goals and processes to follow. They have daily activities that

I've had a couple twitter accounts for a while, but I've been more busy with two blogs, facebook, and LinkedIn. Ironically (because I'm the one who got him started with computers in the 80's!) I've been inspired by my father (@BertDecker) to give Twitter another go. Plus I've been able to synch my Twitter updates with Facebook updates with TwitterSync. Note I'm no longer going to use @deckermarketing. So follow me @SamDecker (posts on marketing, WOM, eBusiness) And also @Baza

Marketers are usually challenged to justify word of mouth social media marketing programs to the finance department. With economic challenges ahead, your job doesn’t get easier. As someone who’s focuses on both creative and measurement, and as Interim CFO at Bazaarvoice, I started thinking more about the question of what marketers need to sell CFOs on the social marketing opportunity. Ultimately everything comes down to the bottom line – drive revenue, margin or costs down –

I hear the word "community" from many marketing managers these days. I hear it so often it would seem every business should strive to have a community. As if community is becoming a common business objective or goal. While the concept of community — and assumed relationship to WOM and customer loyalty — is attractive, the realized business impact of community is a far reach for most companies. I launched a community of baby boomers back in '97. Chat and forums made Thirdage.c

A friend of mine who owns a small agency asked for my perspective on best practices for agencies. Here’s what I sent her, which after I realized would make a blog post!… I’ve worked with about 10 or more agencies, plus many technology suppliers, and there’s a lot to improve. Let me start a few ideas that come to mind: 1) Pitches are not grounded enough in the client’s business objectives, strategy or measurements. Nor are they tailored to the ‘style’ of the company. The best

Oh, I have another one for you. This is a quick scan if you’re a startup, boostrapper, small business, or a college student business…which is what I was when I wrote and used many of these ideas! These one liners may just be useful to throw around in your head and see if something better comes out. 81 One Line Marketing Ideas – Upload a doc Read this doc on Scribd: 81 One Line Marketing Ideas #boostrap #marketing

A few weeks ago I added a small link in one of my posts to my unpublished beginning of a book of 193 Clever Marketing Ideas. John Moore linked to it and it got some interest, so I thought I’d give a more formal promotion here. Plus I want to see how Scribd works in my blog! BTW, Scribd and Slideshare are very cool! 193 Creative Marketing Ideas – Upload a doc Read this doc on Scribd: 193 Creative Marketing Ideas #startupmarketing #Creativemarketing #guerrillamarketing #clever

Late post from the Forrester Marketing Forum Conference I attended a couple weeks ago. The topic was “Customer Engagement”, which is heralded by many publications as the new marketing buzzword. I love buzzwords…they get buzz! Which gets people talking, which gets people trying things, which causes failures, which creates learning, which (hopefully) creates better companies. I digress. The primary research and paper behind customer engagement was conducted by Brian Haven, who’

Take a look at this new compilation video of the last WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) event in Las Vegas. #UnitedStates #Counties #wordofmouth #WordofMouthMarketingAssociation #MarketingandAdvertising #Miami #Business #wommu #WOMMA

Fortunately, I’m homebound with my new son for the next week, but I was able to get away tonight for a dinner at Salt Lick (best BBQ in TX!) with many bloggers who came to Austin for SXSW. Friends made it such as Charlene Li of Forrester and Groundswell, Shel Israel of Global Neighborhoods (Author of Naked Conversations), Bob Pearsons of Dell (runs Dell’s community /conversation / social media team), Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester and Web Strategist, and others. I also met some

This year the Word of Mouth Marketing Association is doing something completely different (disclosure: I’m on the board). It will be WOMM-U (Word of Mouth Marketing University), the first training-based conference full of case studies, operational cookbooks, and practical advice to make Word of Mouth Marketing work in your organization. The tracks will include topics on Managing a blog program Activating WOM in Social Networks Building a Sustained WOM Program Measurement: Th

History repeats itself. A social networking site begins pure and unique, entirely focused on what users find cool. In truth, they’re building on the backs of VCs. Eventually they are pressured to grow revenue and it’s a race against time. The revenue pressure starts to squeeze the original purity of the experience that brought the crowd in the first place. And then the crowd moves on to the next great experience. Remember Tripod and GeoCities? Remember Friendster and Orkut? R

This morning I got a research brief from Mediapost summarizing the findings from the Marketing Effectiveness Networking Group (MENG) and Anderson Aanlytics study. This study surveyed marketing executives to identify key trends and strategies of effective marketing. The subject line of the email said: "Marketing Execs Say Basics Are Most Important in 2008". By "basics" I thought they meant strategies such as becoming measurement-oriented, shifting ad portfolio, investing in em