The paper introduces briefly the concept of social marketing and the promised benefits that could be derived from this area of study. In particular it addresses a neglected area for helping minimize human plights through addressing human conflicts.

However the paper’s main focus is on the need to develop best practice standards that are key to disseminating good practice, thereby making practice more effective and efficient. It refers to a recent initiative to develop such standards and finishes by making recommendations about the way forward.

| More - download the full paper:
www.mymarketinglife.com/mmldocs/articles/2009/Developing_standards_in_social_marketing_Fourali_MSSSB.pdf

Author:
Dr Chahid Fourali
Marketing and Sales Standards Setting Body (UK)
www.msssb.org

Concentrating on staff satisfaction alone is dangerous – poor performers would be satisfied if we increase their pay and give them an easy time. Staff engagement is different and much harder to get right.

Any business needs people who perform to at least 100% all of the time. So how do you know whether your people are engaged? How do you improve
collective performance? Can you measure it so you know where to take action and whether it’s making any difference?

Disengaged people only work when they have to, don’t perform and are a complete distraction to others. Your top performers are passionate, deliver and own problems and find solutions you had never even thought existed. Have you ever thought if I only had 1 good person instead of 2 poor performers? –what a fantastic way to reduce cost in the current economic climate?

We need clearer strategies in companies of all sizes to engage with staff and maximise output. Here are some simple steps you can take.

Firstly you need a clear strategy and some ...

Link up for the pilot of the new 'virtual focus group' service to MML subscribers - See My Customer (TM)

> http://twitter.com/seemycustomers

This is the new service for professional Marketers, from the MyMarketingLfie community, allowing the Marketer to better sense the Customer or Prospect.

'Virtual interviews' are conducted (without the Marketer - its all done through the respondent's computer) and the resulting responses recorded through their web cam and replayed at the Marketer's leisure.

So when it comes to making major decisions on campaigns, product or service developments, or needing to get buy-in from the Board or other group of colleagues, then this is the best way to achieve real input and impact.

Follow now to see what the buzz is, and to be considered for the pilot project!

> http://twitter.com/seemycustomers

One often here’s the 80/20 rule quoted in business – you get 80% of profit from 20% of customers, or variations on this theme, that can even lead to a temptation to cull some customers due to a short term application of the rule. Well, who am I to totally decry this possibility?

However, this can often lead to generalisations that can be harmful for the overall operation of a business, especially in the long term. Key accounts can, truly, be an essential part of one’s business and they should be nurtured, supported and brilliantly serviced, but there always needs to be a balance. Firstly, high sales volumes don’t always mean high profits, especially when hidden costs creep in, like delayed payment times, unfair demands, and an over-dominance of the total operation. Secondly, if taken to extremes, other customers could take umbrage or suffer innocently, especially those who could grow into being key accounts themselves, or those who may have significant influence on others by such things as “word of mouth recommendation” ...

This, the seventh issue of the periodical publication 'The Marketing Manifesto' points out that we have a very poor, perverse view of the customer and that this runs 'out of synch' with our aspirations.

What is our view of the customer? A necessary evil perhaps? This Manifesto seeks to highlight the problem and offer a way to prevent us from treating the prospect and customer in any way other than the way we know we should.

This issue may be downloaded now from here:


http://www.mymarketinglife.com/MMLdocs/marketingmanifestos/TheMarketingManifesto-Marketing_Misathropy-Jun-09-MCO-DH.pdf


These publications are copyright and terms of use apply. Please refer to the document for guidance.

>This, the sixth issue of the periodical publication
>'The Marketing Manifesto' challenges the notion that we
>really are on a customer or market centric path.
>Indeed, do we know what that actually means?

>It is a good question, as we strive towards this
>panacea. If we think we are, or want to be ‘centric’,
>then how do we know we are when we get there? Is
>customer or market centricity merely another buzz term?
>Are we limited in what we can achieve in orienting
>ourselves around the customer by practicalities – such
>as the fact that we have to look after ourselves rather
>than the customer?

>This issue may be downloaded now from here:


>http://www.mymarketinglife.com/MMLdocs/marketingmanifestos/TheMarketingManifesto_AreWeReallyCustomerOrMarketCentric-Apr-09-MCO-DH.pdf

>These publications are copyright and terms of use
>apply. Please refer to the document for guidance.

> By Ian Johnstone-Bryden

The first challenge, in moving from marketing as a function, to marketing as a process, is in understanding what the function is. There are so many different definitions of marketing that it is impossible to produce a single template for process engineering. As the recession ripples out from Britain and America to affect the world, and Britain slides into Depression, now is a very good time to consider enterprise plans and processes.

The current catastrophic economic conditions will improve and a new world will emerge from the debris, as it has after every previous economic downturn. There may be a way to go yet before the economies reach bottom, it may prove a very painful experience, and it may take a long time to recover to reach sustained growth. Effective marketing processes are vital to survival and to the exploitation of new emerging opportunities.

There will be winners from economic downturn. These will be the enterprises that identify what they need to achieve, resourcing ...

This, the fifth issue of the periodical publication 'The Marketing Manifesto' challenges Marketers and their finance colleagues to work together to eradicate poor measurements and provide greater calibration and dashboard capabilities for the organisation.

David Hood, MyMarketingLife's Director of Talent asks some questions of received wisdom and traditional measurements that he says prevents real corporate sustainability and delivering real value to the customer.

To check out this issue, download it now from here:

http://www.mymarketinglife.com/MMLdocs/marketingmanifestos/TheMarketingManifesto_MarketersFinanceAccountantsUnite-Mar-09-MCO-DH.pdf

These publications are copyright and terms of use apply. Please refer to the document for guidance.

A strange question, you may think.

As organisations, there are of course someone who may see a prospect or customer from time to time, when we need them usually, at the point of sale.

Whether we are B2C or B2B, or indeed B2P / public sector, it is probably right to say that our contact with the customer could be a lot more than simply when we try to sell them something.

At MyMarketingLife, we are constantly looking at ways to help Marketers and their organisations overcome barriers to improved performance. One way, we reckon, is to 'bring the customer in'. By that we dont mean in the 'lets get them in the store' way, but to use technology to really give them a direct channel and say in a way that helps the Marketer improve products, service and delivery to the customer.

During this spring, we are going over our assessment of the Marketers' world with a magnifying glass .... looking to see how you can really 'turn up the sensitivity' on how and in what way you can 'pull in the customer' and make both ...

I think that we need to redefine marketing - do you?

Its not that we dont have some good definitions, and now we have some that include the new technologies and marketing channels that enable us to do so much more.

What do you think?

I would like to examine this - if only to provoke the Marketer to think about how truly we are engaging in what we seek to achieve. Its all very well thinking we know what marketing IS, we may only be realising a small portion of its overall objective.

So hear goes, my input for starters ....

> "Marketing is a fundamental business process that enables and forces one to have a systemic view of commerce and the relationship between all customers and stakeholders, maximising the value exchanged between them"

This reflects my system view of marketing, as a holistic science and process-based strategic tool.

I would be interested in what others' have to say about definitions!

Some time ago, I put to the profession that with so many disparate, yet overlapping components were being created that obsfugated and confused.

They usually take the form of Three Letter Acronyms(TLAs - another TLA of course!) such as CRM, MOM, etc. I coined one too - MTM, in the hope that we could ring fence all the others and get a real picture of how to connect those components of modern marketing and get the proverbial 'global picture'.

> Do you think this area is still an issue for Marketers?

Managing Total Marketing (MTM) aims to fill the vacuum and the silos of marketing today. Is Marketing just about the department itself, or is it more about the effectively employing the assets of the whole enterprise to deliver what the customer wants?

MTM was first coined as an initial challenge to marketers and marketing to face up to the vacuum that exists in not having an overall concept of managing it where advanced marketing strategy, operational processes and marketing ‘assets’ were jointly orchestrated ...

> Squeezing more out of Marketing

The UK must be entering a recession. The Governor of the Bank of England says it is inevitable, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown no longer tries to deny it, High street retailers and provincial newspapers are issuing profit warnings, most companies’ marketing budgets are being cut, and enquiries about MRM marketing systems have more than doubled.

MRM (Marketing Resource Management) systems improve efficiency across all marketing operations. Using these systems allows companies to automate routine tasks, manage more with the same numbers of staff, re-use existing collateral across different campaigns, develop more accurate and timely reporting, and as a result save money. The early adopters of these systems introduced them specifically to resolve compliance issues, to improve their processes, and to increase their efficiency. The money saving was a nice, but secondary benefit. Enquiries now very quickly home in on potential savings and do not proceed much further until ...

>We all have a handle on what marketing is - although
>this is debatable as we rarely practice it according to
>the definition - but what exactly is Search Engine
>Marketing (SEM)? Could it start us down the path
>towards true, technology enabled, customer centricity?

> Definitions are Important

>What does it mean to the business? Does it mean simply
>some technology and process that finds products,
>services and providers of things the buyer wishes? Does
>it mean something more advanced that enhances either
>profit-making or better communications or both?

>It is worthwhile defining exactly what we need in
>marketing terms before we think about either what SEM
>is or what it can do for us.

>It is all very well examining a technology or new
>process to see if it has any inherent value that could
>presumably be brought to bear to help communications
>with the customer. It could also help perhaps make, or
>at least try and make, the increasingly multi-channel
>and multi-message world we ...