by Natalie Grbic
We have all heard of the traditional marketing mix: product, price, place, promotion. All four of these elements communicate your firm’s capabilities and image to customers and influence customer satisfaction with the firm’s products and services.
Now I bet you haven’t heard of the “Expanded Marketing Mix for Services.” These are additional [...]

Wendy Piersall of eMomsatHome posted an enfuriated post about her friend Karen Putz AKA Deafmom and how she was denied service at Steak and Shake’s drive-thru because she is deaf.
Wendy is demanding an apology from Steak and Shake’s CEO Alan Gilman. I completely agree.
Here’s what Steak and Shake will do if it cares about its [...]

This is the first in a series of posts I’d like to offer that address how, with the right elements, you can turn an ineffective marketing campaign into one that gets results.
You’ve heard it before: the basis of your marketing should answer the question from your potential buyer:
“What’s in it for me?”
It’s the truth. You [...]

Is YellowPages.com Losing Its Touch?
I’ve been dealing with a frustrating advertising situation that I wanted to share (some of you may be able to relate). Having seen via a client that an ad on YellowPages.com generated good results, I decided to get one for myself. I worked with a rep to get set up.
A few [...]

Even as a marketer, I can’t deny that the best form of advertising is word of mouth. Think of all the times someone has told you about a great restaurant or store, and how many times you followed up on that referral. When you hear good things from a trusted source, no form of advertising [...]

Marketing That Works: the Followup
While at first glance, customer service may not appear to be part of marketing, it is. Everything your company does to promote itself falls under marketing. Following up is one of the key pieces in good customer service. Whether it’s after a sale, after meeting for the first time, or even [...]

Part 1 Here:
You Could Learn a Lot from a Fairy Godmother: How Disney Renewed my Faith in Loyalty and Marketing
I recently was fortunate enough to sit in on a Disney Institute session on loyalty. Not knowing what to expect, I was shocked and delighted when a fairy godmother descended on the room (or rather [...]

Here are 4 questions to ask yourself when it comes to your relationship with your customers:
1. Are your most profitable customers those who have the most reason to be dissatisfied with you?
2. Do you have rules that you want customers to break because doing so generates profits?
3. Do you make it difficult for customers to [...]

Eating Crow: How Apologizing Can be leveraged into a Marketing Strategy
Here’s a fact: as an entrepreneur, one day, you are going to encounter an unhappy customer. You may or may not do something to upset the customer, but the customer will be dissatisfied nonetheless. For me, this has been hard, as I tend to find [...]

Use the Element of Surprise as a Marketing Strategy
We as a society are tired of direct mail, of email promotions, of advertising that interrupts our activities. So how can you get to potential customers (or bring back past customers for repeat business) without turning them off?