Consumer Marketing

SUMMARY: Reputation management, customer service and protecting the brand are all tied together. Finding new customers is a crucial part of consumer marketing, but retaining existing customers is also very important.

This case study looks at how Dairy Queen balances the challenge of handling customer issues while not being in total control of the entire process due to its individual franchises. We look at Dairy Queen’s process, and offer actionable items on being proactive, highlighting how customer comments can improve product development. read the complete case study

SUMMARY: People who find your website through a search engine can be highly qualified. This quality can stretch even further when they find you with specific, long-tail keywords.

See how one retailer earned a 9% conversion rate by targeting specific search terms. Find out how the team used highly targeted video and content to grab more real estate on search pages and convinced visitors to purchase. read the complete article

SUMMARY: "Lower-income shoppers are the fastest-growing income group in the United States and will generate $84 billion in incremental spending during the next decade." "During the third quarter of 2008, CPG spending and private label performance has improved, which is a trend being led by lower-income shoppers." view the complete research record

SUMMARY: The traditional marketing funnel is broken, says Joseph Jaffe, marketing consultant and author. Its emphasis on customer acquisition means marketers spend most of their time looking for new customers rather than nurturing the ones they already have.

Changing this marketing paradigm is the call-to-arms of Jaffe’s latest marketing book, “Flip the Funnel,” which officially launched with a keynote presentation at MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit in Miami last week. We sat down with him for an interview following his speech to learn more, and to outline five key strategies for changing your company’s marketing focus. read the complete interview

SUMMARY: Do you have a short anecdote about test results, campaign lessons or other insights you gained in 2011? If so, please take two minutes to share it for your chance to be published in the 2012 Marketing Wisdom Report, sponsored by HubSpot. read the complete article

While this is just one consumer’s complaint, it’s something to think about. “Rob” recently was quoted in a Consumerist post about how Amazon ruined his wife’s surprise Christmas present by sending email recommendations relevant to the gift he purchased.

His wife saw a subject line referring to the surprise gift (a TomTom GPS) on the couple’s shared Google homepage enabled with an iGoogle email widget showing recent emails.

I suppose one could argue that it’s... read the complete blog post