41 posts tagged “michael leander”
The CMO Trends 2009 webseminar took place on 2nd of February 2009. With 40 people signing up from around 20 countries, the webseminar was truly international.
ADVERT: More web-seminars here
I (Michael Leander) had anticipated that I would need to add content to the CMO Trends 2009 survey result in order for the webseminar to be interesting to the attendees.
That didn’t quite work out. I simply didn’t spend enough time preparing and reviewing the contents and structure. However, the webseminar was nevertheless relative well received.
Judge for yourself - review the evaluation below
I am conducting a new survey about social networking. If you participate you will receive;
- the survey report which will be published in March 2009
- an invitation to a complimentary web-seminar where the survey results will be presented AND discussed. The latter of which should be highly interesting for anyone inteterested in social networking and understanding how to drive value from social networks.
Go here now to participate in the survey - it takes 4-5 minutes of your time only
Faced with significant challenges in 2009, CMO’s (chief marketing officer’s) all over the world need to rethink their marketing approach.
In February we are releasing the report CMO Trends 2009 based on the CMO Trends survey conducting in November and December 2008. But before we do, we are presenting a summary of the survey at a web-seminar. The web-seminar will provide tangible input to how marketers can effectively increase the Return on Marketing Investment in 2009 and beyond.
In Michael Leander’s Marketing Tip # 12 you will get an introduction to how you can use online surveys to collect information for a variety of purposes including how to use surveys for lead acquisition.
Online surveys are flexible in the sense that a wide range of information can be collected. They can be used to study customer preferences, attitudes, values, beliefs, and past behaviours. In this presentation Michael Leander is exemplifying the use of online survey using the survey tool Survey Gizmo, but of course there are manhy others out there for you to use.
Setting up an online survey for researching f.ex. customer or product satisfaction, loyalty, preference - measuring the customer experience or having respondents evaluate your website, blog, web-seminar, a physical event or anything you fancy is a cost-efficient method to initiate a dialogue with your target audience.
Watch the video below
Go here to claim your free trial
Want to watch previous episodes of Michael Leander’s Marketing Tips?
Click on the links below.
Marketing Tip 11 about Xobni - email management
Marketing Tip 10 about monitorering what is being written about you on Google
Marketing Tip 9 about mind mapping your marketing projects and more
Marketing Tip 8 about marketing planning and marketing budgeting
Marketing Tip 7 about important web-metrics
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This is a selfevaluation by me - Michael Leander - relating to my performance at the recent web-seminar “Email Marketing: Improving results through effective profiling and segmentation”. It will reveal my thoughts about the web-seminar and share with you the feedback given by the attendees.
Over at my Danish blog - www.michaelleander.com - I have started reviewing, criticizing myself. It is very private indeed. But so many other private thoughts and recollections are shared on the internet these days. So why wouldn’t I risk the chance of being ridiculed by publishing these thoughts for you and everyone else to see.
Below you can read how the attendees evaluated the web-seminar. You can also read their recommendations. It is quite interesting - to me at least.
To sum it all up, the overall value for the participants scored a 6 out of 7, where 7 is the highest possible score. And quite a few people indicated that they liked the actual web-seminar, and many that they see great value in the web-seminar format (you know, not having to leave the home or the office, avoiding traffic, less chance of being late for the next meeting, the cost aspect, the convenience aspect etc.).
My own reflections
It was the second time I delivered this presentation in a web-seminar. And I am going to be giving the same presentation (with a few improvements, of course) again 8 to 10 times before the end of 2009. So I should be able to get it 100% right sooner or later :- )
To summarize my self-criticism;
_ I need to work on my slow/fast, deep/soft speaking techniques, pausing and more interaction with - what is usually - a wonderful group of people participating. (most of the time quite willing to interact but also quite capable of providing valuable input and suggestions to the marketing topic addressed in the presentation)
- I get too stressed during the event. Probably because of lack of feedback (you know, speaking to a group of people in a web-seminar is very different than speaking in a room full of people).
- I must work on my English. I am using too many words such as “ehh”, “arh” and have a bad tendency to use sentences such as “obviously ….” or “and so on and so on” or “needless to say”, “actually” - it’s awful. What might be obvious to me, isn’t necessarily obvious to anyone else.
- My tendency to speak too fast near the end of a web-seminar is a show-stopper.
- Tooooo much content; I need to cut at least 10 minutes off
- Get 5 hours of sleep and don’t change the slides in the last minute
- And ensure that I use the correct presentation from start to finish (ooops), well at least I found out that I wasn’t using the most current presentation
- Beware of “auto-pilot”
Judging by the participants score, the content was not on par with the apparent experience of speaking skills. So for the next web-seminar, I need to work hard to increase the value and the structure of the content. Or perhaps it might be an idea to skip a few areas and then go deeper into certain areas such as the actual hands-on profiling techniques, how to identify weak profiles or other areas. I will need to consider that.
I am in the process of planning the European Email Permission Marketing Roadshow. Part of the planning process involves identifying conference hotels. So by chance I came across Hotel Light in Sofia, Bulgaria. And I was pleasantly surprised. This hotel in the center of Sofia have - either by chance or deliberately - managed to produced an amazingly appelaing website that allow you to experience just about anything the hotel has to offer in a fast, unique and appealing way.
I have created a short video to show the features offered by the hotel’s website.
So why was I so excited about this?
I have booked a great deal of hotel rooms in my time. And more often than not, I am disappointed when I check in to the room.
I have often found a large gap between what the expectation generated by viewing the hotel website, the website of the hotel booking engine or - preinternet - a brochure - and the actual experience. Now, mind you, I am a detail guy. There are certain things I need when in a hotel room. Things like certain TV channels, hazzle free internet (no coupons, codes, cords to fetch from the reception - please), a decent sized working desk, a mini bar, preferably a coffee machine or similar and an iron and iron board. This hotel did not provided answers to all of these questions, but most. And then they offer other services, which I thought was quite good.
Watch for yourself here:
What Hotel Light does so well in my opinion is;
_ a transparent presentation of the hotel and its features
- a believable presentation (I actually believe that’s what it looks like)
- a to die for brilliant navigation
- attention to detail. Did you see aircondition feature or the satelitte channel overview?
In my humble opinion, I would advice the hotel marketing managent to change but one thing; the front page. The big splash with text on the front page doesn’t do the hotel justice. Remember first impressions and all that.
Pay a visit to the Hotel Light website here - and please do let me know what you think.
Michael Leander’s Marketing Tip 11 provides a brief introduction to Xobni. Bill Gates called Xobni the next generation of social networking. I call it an interesting tool that makes my day more productive. Especially for social networking, keeping track on files and email conversations.
Xobni says: “Xobni is the Outlook plug-in that saves you time finding email conversations, contacts and attachments.”
Watch the introduction below now
Want to watch previous episodes of Michael Leander’s Marketing Tips?
Click on the links below.
Marketing Tip 10 about monitorering what is being written about you on Google
Marketing Tip 9 about mind mapping your marketing projects and more
Marketing Tip 8 about marketing planning and marketing budgeting
Marketing Tip 7 about important web-metrics
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Customerization is a neologism and can be defined as the customization of products or services through personal interaction between a company or brand and the customer. A company is customerized when it is able to dialogue with individual customers and respond by customizing its products, services and messages on a ”one-to-one” basis. But it is also a form of personalization that allows the customer to modify or tailor a product or service according to their needs.
In my opinion customerization represents a real opportunity for many brands interested in engaging customers and communities of prospects. Customerization certainly does create involvement, is engaging and will, if done properly, become the talk of the town.
I have searched for some (cute) examples. Haven’t found many, but here are a few. If you have more examples, please do share in the comment box below.
Creating your own Heinz Ketchup
Heinz offer a solution where you can customize your message on a number of Heinz products. So far this solution is offered in USA and Canada only. Too bad.
Could even be great for restaurants to promote dessert, coffee or… Or for the company canteen.
For birthdays or other events, this gimmick might be the most talked about experience from the event.
Your face or brand name on an official US stamp
I love this one. And I think it might turn out to be a great add-on for a successful direct mail campaign. I guess you would have to post your direct mail from the USA, though. Hope that some of the European postal companies will pick-up on this soon. How about Swiss Post – they are usually very innovative?
Sure your children, grand children or your friends children will love this one. Or perhaps your chocolate loving spouse ? The image here doesn’t do the concept justice. I think this is one of the customerization products one have to see physically. What happens is that you get a message on one side of an M&M and a picture on the other side. The picture will look like the illustration on the very right. And of course you get to choose your favorite M&M colors. Cute, ehh?
Michael Leander’s Marketing Tip #10 will introduce you to Google Alerts. A service offered by search engine company Google which notifies its users by email (or as a feed) about the latest web and news pages of their choice.
Perfect for monitoring what is being written about you, your company, your competitors, your products and much more, Google Alerts currently offers six types of alert searches: “News”, “Web”, “Blogs”, “Comprehensive”, “Video” and “Groups”.
A News alert is an email that lets the user know if new articles make it into the top ten results of his/her Google News search. A Web alert is an email that lets the user know if new web pages appear in the top twenty results for his/her Google Web search.
Watch the introduction by Michael Leander here:
A News & Web alert is an email that lets the user know when new articles related to his/her search term make it into the top ten results for a Google News search or the top twenty results for a Google Web search. A Groups alert is an email that lets the user know if new posts make it into the top fifty results of his/her Google Groups search.
Google Alerts also allow its users to determine the frequency in which checks are made for new results. Three options are available: “once a day”, “once a week”, or “as it happens”. These options do not necessarily control how often they will receive alerts. The first option, for example, means they will receive at most one alert email per day. The “as it happens” option can result in many alert emails per day, depending on the search.
To setup your Google Alerts click here
For monitoring competitors, what is being written on Google about you, your company, your brand, your products, your service etc. Google Alerts is a great tool - in my opinion.
A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in brainstorming, study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.
I found mind mapping to be a great tool for a variety of projects. Product development, marketing planning, planning of marketing events, conceptualizing and productizing and many more.
In this presentation I present to you a great easy to use tool for mind mapping. Eventhough there are a number of freeware software tools out there, this particular tool is simple to use, yet highly advanced. It includes features for real time collaboration through online meetings or chat as well as a tight integration to office applications.
Mind maps (or similar concepts) have been used for centuries in learning, brainstorming, memory, visual thinking, and problem solving by educators, engineers, psychologists, and others. Some of the earliest examples of mind maps were developed by Porphyry of Tyros, a noted thinker of the 3rd century, as he graphically visualized the concept categories of Aristotle. Philosopher Ramon Llull (1235 - 1315) also used mind maps.
The semantic network was developed in the late 1950s as a theory to understand human learning and developed into mind maps by Allan Collins and M. Ross Quillian during the early 1960s. Due to his commitment and published research, and his work with learning, creativity, and graphical thinking, Collins can be considered the father of the modern mind map.
Now - thanks to clever and userfriendly technology - mind mapping is becoming more an more popular. Why not try it out for yourself?
