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The presidential election now upon us offers an interesting contrast in marketing approaches. One candidate is all about brand, image, and soaring rhetoric that appeals to the heart. The other is (significantly) less flashy but appeals to our more practical side. He’s the candidate of rational, “value” buyers who carefully consider the offerings then choose the one that offers the greatest benefit for the lowest price—an appeal to the brain.

From a product standpoint, Obama is like the iPod. Never mind that there are lots of MP3 players that offer matching or even superior functionality, at a lower price, without the limitation of compatibility only with a closed network—the iPod is cool! So much so that “iPod” has become to “MP3 player” what “Kleenex” is to “tissue.”

McCain on the other hand is the “off-brand” that peels buyers away from the big name through an appeal to value. A classic example is Dell Computer. When the company first got started, IBM was the premier, established brand in PCs. But Dell eventually wiped them out of the market with a better product, lower price, and direct appeal that bypassed traditional channels.

There’s no question that McCain represents the better “value” in this election: lower taxes, smaller government, free trade, free market healthcare reform, and on foreign policy experience…no comparison. But on brand, Obama kicks. He’s the candidate of hope and change, of mega-crowds, a uniter-not-a-divider (wait, wasn’t that…ah, never mind). McCain, in contrast, appears to many people that he really is your father’s Oldsmobile. Or worse, your grandfather’s. And his choice of a running mate who, fairly or not, comes off as not exactly Mensa material has arguably hurt McCain more than Obama’s past connections have impacted his image.

Sometime late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning (barring any hanging chads), we’ll know: are the majority of us brand buyers or value shoppers?

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Originally posted here:
McCain, Obama, and Marketing Part 2: Brand vs. Value

LinkedIn yesterday announced a new service that enables market researchers and investors to conduct market intelligence research using LinkedIn’s network of over 30 million professionals worldwide, approximately half of whom are IT and business decision makers.The news was quickly picked up by numerous bloggers including Doug Caverly, Bill Holmes and Layne Salter (an indication of how adept the PR folks at LinkedIn are with interactive PR).

Essentially, companys that want to conduct market research among difficult-to-reach B2B and IT decision makers will now be able to slice and dice profiles of LinkedIn’s large member base to reach groups with very specific attributes. From the participant side, “LinkedIn members who participate in a survey can choose from a variety of rewards including gift cards from Amazon, Starbucks, Best Buy, or make a donation to charities.”

This is all good—vendors can get valuable feedback from the right sample groups based on accurate LinkedIn profiles, LinkedIn gets another revenue stream, and participants get token rewards. But it seems to me there may be an opportunity missed here.

People join social networks for lots of reasons, but I’ve never of anyone joining for the purpose of collecting $10 gift cards or Starbucks coffee coupons. Among the top reasons people join are to get recognition and to form new relationships. Bloggers often join, for example, in order to both drive more traffic to their blogs and to connect with like-minded readers and other bloggers.

So…any company can spend some money on gift cards and use the new LinkedIn offering to collect market research data. But the really smart ones will find a way to tap the motivations of LinkedIn members and create a mutually benefical social experience that provides not just data, but understanding.

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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

The rest is here:
LinkedIn B2B Surveys - Will They be Social?

Note: this is the first of two guest-posts from customer loyalty expert Nisha Prasad at IQPC. Read on to find out how you can get special pricing for IPQC’s upcoming customer engagement and loyalty event.

You’re a marketing star. You have more creativity than Jeff Koons, your plans are impeccable and your campaigns are the stuff of marketing Hall of Fame.

But are you hitting the mark where it counts? That is, are you engaging and retaining your customers, as well as marketing to them?

We all know the positive business impact of keeping our customers loyal but its often difficult to implement and execute a customer-oriented marketing plan that a) wins C Level Support b) is compatible with current business processes and c) uses financial resources wisely.

IQPC has put together the Customer Engagement and Loyalty Summit (November 17-19, 2008, Hilton Miami, FL) to address these real marketing issues. The two-day conference brings together successful business oriented leaders to share their customer strategies and secrets. No fluff, no mirrors and lights, just straightforward answers and opportunity to benchmark in an open, engaging format. It may be the most valuable conference you attend this year.

Some of the most relevant topics in customer engagement and loyalty include:

• Sales and Marketing Integration for Customer Retention and Loyalty
• Analyzing Customer Feedback
• Translating Loyalty into Financial Impact
• Generating Word of Mouth
• Using Technology and analytics and finding out which is best for you
• Changing Employee Behavior to enhance customer engagement

In addition to the ready-to-use takeaway strategies, the event provides great networking opportunities to discuss and share your own successes and challenges with peers. Zappos, Best Buy, Borders, Mastercard Worldwide, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Telllabs, Canada Post, Abbott Labs, and Charles Schwab will also be speaking and sharing their customer expertise.

Go on over, check out the website at www.iqpc.com/us/CustomerLoyalty.

Finally, a conference for marketers that addresses the important issues head on: customers and business impact.

p.s. And because you’re reading this blog, you automatically get a perk (your boss will love that!): 2-for-1 conference pricing when you mention code: IUS_WMC_001. Great price, great speakers, great topics, great networking, great takeaways—the Customer Engagement and Loyalty Summit is for you.

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Original post:
Where Savvy Marketers Go to Become Savvier

If you sell products through channels and would like to have the data to compare your pains and strategies against other channel marketers, here’s a research project you may want to participate in.

SharedVue Marketing Technologies is looking for channel marketers to take a brief on-line survey about their pain points regarding channel marketing programs. They are especially interested in marketers in Fortune 2000 technology companies who use third party dealers to market their products. The survey is intended to improve understanding of the challenges and needs of marketers using channel marketing strategies.

SharedVue will share the summary results of the survey with all survey participants and is offering a drawing for an iPod Shuffle. Individual response data will be kept confidential. The survey takes approximately 2-8 minutes.

Again, the survey can be found here.

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More:
SharedVue Conducting Channel Marketing Survey

Jon Miller at marketing automation vendor Marketo, just posted his interview with me, B2B Marketing Thought Leadership: Tom Pick. I’m a bit too modest to be totally comfortable with a title like that, but I appreciate the compliment nonetheless.

So, if you’d like to read my blathering on about marketing innovation, blogging, social bookmarking, SEO, SMO, SEM, b2b lead generation, lead management and B2B marketing and PR in general (which maybe you do, since you’re here after all), check out Jon’s interview.

View original post here:
Briefly: My Interview with Jon Miller