David Herlambang's marketing blog. He's got some very interesting and good marketing related posting. http://www.marketingfirst.blogspot.com/

Here is an article which tells you exactly how to unshrink wool.

When wool gets wet and warm, the fibres in the wool lock themselves together and don't want to let go, resulting in shrinkage (you can get wool warm or wet, but not both), which kind of makes washing wool garments a dangerous business.
To un-shrink the wool, soak the garment in warm water with a mild wool friendly soap for about 10 minutes. This unlocks the fibres in the wool. Then lay the garment out on some towels in a cool place. Stretch the garment out to its original dimensions. The stretching pulls the unlocked wool fibres away from each other. Once this is done relax and allow your wool garment to dry. The absence of heat from the drying process allows the wool fibres to set in place without locking together and shrinking the garment again.

Companies Missing Big Opportunity to Turn Customer Pain Into Competitive Gain, Says CMO Council Report

Despite overwhelming agreement on the importance of customer experience and word-of-mouth, senior marketers admit their companies are failing to take decisive, company-wide action to integrate customer voice and experience into key business and marketing processes, according to a new study by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council.
Sponsored by Satmetrix, the Net Promoter Company, the study, titled "Giving Customer Voice More Volume," revealed that a surprising 58 percent of the 480 executives surveyed said their companies do not compensate any employees or executives based on customer loyalty, satisfaction improvements or analytics. Some 38 percent said their companies have no programs in place to track or propagate positive word of mouth among customers. In addition, only 29 percent said their companies rate highly in their ability handle and resolve customer problems or complaints.

The CMO Council study underscores critical deficiencies in the way companies measure, optimize and leverage customer experience to drive loyalty, improve brand value and increase business performance and growth, including:

-- Insufficient availability and aggregation of real-time customer
experience data across touch points that should be shared across the
organization

-- Poor use of customer interactions to collect insights and intelligence
or maximize up-sell and advocacy opportunities

-- Lack of Internet processes and systems to track online word of mouth
and drive customer advocacy

-- Intermittent or deficient monitoring of customer experience that fails
to provide true and timely insights into problems and opportunities

-- Too few compensation programs tied to customer experience, loyalty and
satisfaction gains

"Customer experience is one of the most critical determinants of brand strength and business growth. Yet, most organizations and senior marketers suffer from major blind spots and gaps in the way they interact, handle and respond to customer issues or problems," said CMO Council executive director Donovan Neale-May. "CMOs must assume ownership for the customer experience and establish enterprise-wide measures and disciplines to ensure continuous improvement. We are missing a major opportunity to turn customer pain into competitive gain at every touch point through better use of web and contact center technologies and processes."

Customer listening, learning and leveling are critical qualities that need to be part of an institutionalized corporate culture, notes the CMO Council. Yet, survey data demonstrates that most companies are not taking advantage of these opportunities to drive company-wide performance improvement and business growth. Instead, most companies treat customer interactions around service situations and incidents only as a problem that needs quick resolution:

-- Only 38 percent of companies gather customer insight from customer
engagement situations.

-- Just 32 percent look for ways to turn problems into new sales
opportunities, and only 15 percent introduce new products or services to
further monetize the relationship.

-- Merely 17 percent use the opportunity to identify and cultivate
potential customer champions and advocates.

While companies have a long way to go in turning detractors into brand advocates, senior marketers are clearly aware of the importance of customer experience. In fact, 83 percent of respondents said it is either "essential" or "increasingly important" in driving brand advocacy and business performance. In addition, 84 percent said positive customer experiences and word of mouth have helped their brands and businesses grow. There were 44 percent of respondents who admitted that high-profile negative customer experiences had at some time compromised their brands.

Only 31 percent rate their company's commitment to customer listening highly, but another 35 percent say it is "getting better." Although 34 percent of respondents said their companies have made no changes to the way they track and analyze customer experience in recent years, it can be seen as a positive development that 45 percent of respondents say their companies have taken steps to better integrate and analyze customer data. Another 39 percent said they have increased personalization and intimacy in their customer communications, 20 percent say they have embraced intelligent Internet analytics and 18 percent are capturing real-time information at the "point of pain."

"Companies must become more sophisticated and committed to both leveraging customer experience as a key business metric and instituting company-wide processes that drive improvement," said Laura Brooks, Ph.D. and vice president of research for Satmetrix. "The Net Promoter Score has been proven to be the most reliable customer metric for business growth, but measurement is not an end in itself. Companies need to commit themselves to understanding the key determinants of their score and continuously strive to improve their customer experience competitiveness." Brooks is co-author, with Satmetrix CEO Richard Owen, of a new book, titled "Answering the Ultimate Question," that offers a new operating model for NetPromoter success.

Other key findings of the study include:

-- Nearly two-thirds of companies do not have a formal Voice of Customer
program in place.

-- Only 13 percent of companies have deployed real-time systems to
collect, analyze and distribute customer feedback.

-- While 74 percent say they receive customer feedback via e-mail, only
23 percent say they track and measure the volume and nature of these
messages.

-- Customer voice has gone online, but only 14.5 percent track word of
mouth on the Internet

-- Only 12 percent are using a word-of-mouth marketing platform to drive
online customer advocacy.

Avoiding the Blame Game Between Sales and Marketing
by Anneke Seley
coauthor, Sales 2.0: Improve Business Results Using Innovative Sales Practices and Technology

One of the strategic prerequisites of Sales 2.0 — the use of innovative sales practices enabled by technology — is the alignment of sales and marketing. Organizations often have different executives with separate goals, perspectives, and compensation-plan objectives running sales and marketing. This can lead not only to internal unrest but also to negative customer experiences or perceptions of your company, not to mention poor sales results. Those companies that engineer their organizations to guarantee sales and marketing cooperation, however, achieve both competitive advantage and improved revenue.

One company that exemplifies a high level of collaboration between sales and marketing is newScale (link to newScale.com), a company that offers IT service catalog and service portfolio management software solutions. This is due to the close working relationship and shared compensation-plan targets of the company’s EVP and head of sales, David Satterwhite, and VP of marketing, Mark Hamilton. Their partnership commitment is so strong that they not only co-develop integrated programs and practices, but they also make presentations as a team. These executives’ dedication to collaboration, elusive in many companies, earned them a market-leading position in its field, with more than 1.5 million users worldwide, including 20 percent of the Fortune 50.

David and Mark are evangelists of sales and marketing communication and collaboration at the top level.

They make it a priority.
Both believe alignment has a critically positive impact on both top- and bottom-line results and frees them to focus on making their numbers. They also stress that it is a prerequisite to a healthy and productive company culture.
David and Mark maintain their commitment to alignment by considering each other members of their management teams, attending the other’s management meetings, and holding weekly one-on-one meetings or phone calls. They treat the annual marketing plan as a customer proposal, with sales being the customer, and share staffing and head-count planning.

They develop shared rules of the road.
This includes assuming a positive rather than adversarial intent on the part of the other department, which they model at the highest level, and recognizing that they have a shared ultimate metric of success — revenue growth — on which compensation in both sales and marketing is based.
David underlines the importance of upbeat psychology, as well as personal relationships, in business. By coaching his sales team to give marketing staff the benefit of the doubt when something goes wrong and by helping them resolve conflicts through trust, he avoids hours of management “therapy” and keeps his group focused on sales effectiveness and efficiency.

They leverage each other’s strengths.
David contributes his sales instincts for what produces revenue, understands what motivates his customers to buy and his sales team to sell, and has highly developed skills negotiating and winning deals. Mark is expert at operations, systems, and processes, distilling and analyzing complex concepts, and seeding and growing markets.

They collaborate on designing and implementing sales tools and technologies.
Price lists, closed-loop lead processes, weekly sales tips, win/loss programs, and continual surveys of marketing-program effectiveness are some of the tools the company developed that have passed the sales “sniff test.” Because they are designed by both sales and marketing, they actually get used.
Mark describes the difficulty he faced getting newScale’s sales people to report on lost deals. Sales people like to celebrate successes, not dwell on failures. By documenting the deals they haven’t won, sales people may feel they bring attention to their weaknesses in sales process or skills. When he asked his marketing group to call “lost” customers, though, Mark uncovered a solution to the problem of engaging the sales team. The calls revealed that many customers weren’t lost at all, as they weren’t happy with their chosen alternative solution to newScale’s product. Though newScale’s sales team didn’t win these sales initially, these customers became part of the pipeline a second time through Mark’s calling program. The sales group happily adopted the program when they understood it as a sales campaign that could unearth recycled, newly qualified leads.
Mark also recognized an opportunity to improve lead qualification and pipeline building using products from Genius.com (link to genius.com), but he wouldn’t dream of signing up to try them without running the idea by the manager of David’s deal-development team. Genius’ products truly support a Sales 2.0 (link to phoneworks.com/sales20) collaboration between marketing and sales by allowing reps in both departments to track and act on important data on potential customers (such as who is responding to e-mail messages, and what web pages they are looking at right now and for how long). By including the sales team in the evaluation and decision-making process, Mark succeeded in bringing a valuable sales tool into the company that is enthusiastically embraced by the lead qualifiers.

As customer requirements and economic conditions change, the old way of selling — independently of or in contradiction to marketing efforts — doesn’t work. Sales 2.0, the evolution of the sales function, includes rethinking sales strategy, people, process, and technology. With a business strategy that emphasizes sales and marketing alignment and collaborative planning and execution, companies will stay competitive and achieve sales success.

Anneke Seley is the CEO and founder of Phone Works, a consultancy that helps large and small businesses build and restructure sales teams to achieve predictable, measurable, and sustainable sales growth. As the 12th employee at Oracle, she designed the company’s revolutionary inside sales operation. Her book, Sales 2.0: Improve Business Results Using Innovative Sales Practices and Technology, is available at online retailers including amazon.com, bn.com, booksamillion.com, and borders.com. For more information, visit www.sales20book.com.

MORE than 10.6 million Australians will receive cash bonuses under a $42b Government plan to boost the economy.

As the Reserve Bank prepares to announce another cut in official interest rates this afternoon, the Government has released details of its plan to support up to 90,000 jobs. It also revealed a $22.4 billion fiscal budget deficit will blow out to $33.3 billion by 2009-10.

Under the economic stimulus package:
FROM March, families eligible for Family Tax Benefit Part A will receive a $950 Back to School Bonus for each eligible child.One-off $950 payments will also be made to: AROUND 1.5 million single-income families who receive Family Tax Benefit Part B; FARMERS and rural-dependent small business owners receiving exceptional circumstances assistance;YOUTH Allowance, Austudy, Abstudy and Education Entry Payment recipients;FROM April, workers earning up to and including $80,000 will get a $950 tax bonus;THOSE earning $80,000 - $90,000 will get $650;PEOPLE earning between $90,000 - $100,000 will receive $300.

The Government will also: INSTALL free ceiling insulation in 2.7 million homes;CONSTRUCT 20,000 public and social housing dwellings and 802 Defence houses;DOUBLE the rebate to landlords who install insulation in rental properties to $1000 INCREASE the Solar Hot Water Rebate from $1000 to $1600;SPEND $850 million on fixing roads, building boom gates for rail crossings and building community infrastructure such as town halls, libraries and sport centres.

Schools will also benefit: ALL 9540 Australian schools will receive up to $200,000 for maintenance and building works; EVERY primary, special and combined Prep - Year 12 school will receive money for large-scale infrastructure such as libraries and multi-purpose halls;ABOUT 500 new science laboratories and language learning centres will be constructed in high schools.Meanwhile, businesses will be eligible for a share of $2.7 billion worth of investment tax breaks. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan will hold a press conference this afternoon to discuss the plan and the budget and economic outlook.

Session 6 The human touch – using podcasts for interaction and to create new relationships Dave Slusher – Evil Genius Chronicles Podcast This session focused on the relationship it is possible to build with an audience on a small scale,...

Keynote address 7 – Don Katz CEO Audible Inc The main message to the Portable Media Expo from Don Datz, was that for podcasting to take off, it needs to be easy, really easy. Here are the key points: 1)...

Channel 4 and ITN have joined together to offer viewers the chance to develop their own ‘citizen journalism’. Breaking the News – developed by indie producer Illumina Digital - enables viewers to produce their own news stories through an online...

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http://www.1stpromotion.com/pro/?webmaster=smartecre

How to Write and Publish your own eBook... in as little as 7 Days: "�How to write and publish your own OUTRAGEOUSLY Profitable eBook in as little as 7 days � even if you can�t write, can�t type and failed high school English class!�"

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1stPromotion.com, the trusted source of ClickBank utilities and premium work-at-home opportunities, announced today the introduction of their newest web mall and affiliate income portal. "

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Are Your Ready To Break Out Of The Plug-In Income Mold?
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12 Reasons to Market With Postcards
Copyright 2005 Bob Leduc
http://BobLeduc.com

If your marketing activity doesn't include postcards, you're
overlooking a highly effective and very low-cost sales tool.
Here are 12 of the many reasons postcards should be part of
your marketing program...

1. Postcards Work for Any Business

Postcards can produce all kinds of sales activity for all
types of businesses. For example, they can produce web site
traffic for online marketers, floor traffic for retail
stores, sales leads for direct marketers ...and just about
any other type of sales activity a business wants.

2. Designing Postcards is Simple and Uncomplicated

Designing an effective postcard is not complicated. It can
be as simple as printing your best small ad on a 4 x 6 card
and sending it to a list of potential prospects. Postcards
usually work best when the message is brief and the postcard
looks at first glance like a message from friend.

3. Printing Postcards is Easy and Inexpensive

You can print postcards with your own computer for about 1
or 2 cents each ...or have them printed professionally for
about 4 to 8 cents each.

4. There's a Special Low Postage Rate for Postcards

You can send any quantity of postcards by First Class Mail
in the US for only 23 cents each. The only requirement is
that your postcards must be at least 3 1/2 x 5 inches but no
larger than 4 1/4 x 6 inches.

5. Postcards Nearly Always Get Read

Because postcards are delivered "ready to read", almost
everybody will read it - even people who usually throw out
other types of direct mail without opening it.

6. Postcards Produce Fast Results

Because postcards are simple and easy to use - they produce
results fast. You can mail postcards within a few days of
deciding to use them ...and you'll start getting sales
activity 2 or 3 days later.

7. Postcards are effective for Generating Web site Traffic

One of the most effective postcard formats simply lists a
few benefits of a product or service on the card and tells
the reader to where they can get more information. This
makes them ideal for generating traffic to a web site.

8. Postcard Multiply Themselves

Postcards are like small billboards - and they are easy to
handle. They often get saved by recipients or passed on to
others ...providing additional exposure of your advertising
message.

9. Markets Can Be Precisely Targeted With Postcards

You can accurately target your best markets by sending
postcards only to mailing lists of prospects likely to be
interested in what you're offering ...and who also have a
history of acting on offers that interest them.

10. Postcard Marketing Results Are Easy To Measure

Postcards normally generate over 90 percent of their total
response within 7 to 10 days. This enables you to quickly
and accurately evaluate the results of a postcard campaign.

11. Postcards Put You in Control of Your Sales Activity

You can quickly boost (or reduce) your sales activity
anytime you want by simply regulating the number of
postcards you mail and how often you mail them.

12. Postcards Conceal Your Marketing from Competitors

Most advertising uses mass media where your competitors hear
or see what you are doing - and copy it. Postcard marketing
is personal. Only you and your prospects are aware of what
you are doing.

Postcards may be one of the best kept secrets of modern
marketing. They're highly effective, very low-cost, simple
to use ...and they work for any business. You're overlooking
a profitable marketing tool if don't use them.

Bob Leduc spent 20 years helping businesses like yours find
new customers and increase sales. He just released a New
Edition of his manual, How To Build Your Small Business Fast
With Simple Postcards ...and launched *BizTips from Bob*, a
newsletter to help small businesses grow and prosper. You'll
find his low-cost marketing methods at: http://BobLeduc.com
or call: 702-658-1707 After 10 AM Pacific Time/Las Vegas, NV
_______________________________

Online and offline marketing strategies must go hand in hand. I found postcards a valuable asset in my own marketing toolbox. Learn more about how you can be successful with your own homebusiness at http://www.smartecreation.com

Business Development - Be competent in Home Business, Sales, Marketing and Internet Marketing!

Attention Self-starters, entrepreneurs, home business professionals, corporate employers and sales & marketing professionals: Find expert internet marketing advice here serving your personal development and professional training success and leadership. Build yourself a library of business expertise that will save you time, money and effort in the pursuit of home money making business opportunity

KLM heeft deze maand aanbiedingen op een zestal europese bestemmingen.

You may need those SUCCESS STORIES to enlighten you on your way to succeed in your passion, niche, profession or anything else in between. Do always read stories about success to achieve your goals.

Classic Blogger was the best. However, the new version is improved. Regardless to this, does it make you any money? Is it better to build or to blog? See how to improve your blog here.

The home biz search engine helps you find any information about any home biz to study, research it and use it to improve your lifestyle.

The Ezine Acts RSS explains the "really simple syndication" process, how it works, how to get feeds, how to use it to automate your website & how to share it with social media & RSS platforms.

Love and romance is about how to achieve love and romantic compatibility regardless to your age? Single, married, divorced or even aged! It doesn't matter since your heart is still beating.

The Ezine Acts Sentimental Stories delight and make you evening light. Written by real people in love about love experiences and emotional problems, they open knowledge into solutions.

An example of how some people who request consulting and want others to help them do things in a hurry, write such long sentences and just don't care.

Wakening of the Phoenix, or Rising of the Phoenix? Could YOU help me determine which is better to write the English version of this Arabic poetry book? The Arabic version is here.

My books on the Ezine Acts Bookshop & some other useful books by titles and authors. You can save money on selected books about your interests, or use the bookstore to publish your books, or to promote books you like.

The HOME BIZ TRENDS offer three meditation services in business, love & politics. The HBT network helps you improve your life by stepping into the right passion.

If you wanted to work at home, implement the guidelines in this article. They are necessary for any business that you want to build working from home.

What is so unique in your love letters? Why your sentimental letters are important? How to make your affectionate letters sell? Get hot answers to make others like your emotional letters.

Deepfake technology uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) or advanced computing to generate convincing images, audio, or even video, that are not real.

Hackers commonly leverage social engineering to get a foothold in a company.

Let's face it, Windows can be noisy. By default, it shows news, weather, ads, and lots and lots of popups. We limit some of these things for ITS TeamCare clients, but many are under your control.

Artificial Intelligence is all the rage. However, it already has a dark side, and no, we're not talking about Skynet-level annihilation.

It's often helpful to take an image of your screen when working with tech support or showing someone how to perform a task. Windows has a built in Snipping Tool to capture what you see, and to mark up the image.

Similar to its long term migration to New Teams, Microsoft plans to replace the classic Outlook desktop app with New Outlook.

Dawn Travel, an innovative leader in the luxury travel and cruise industry, is proud to announce that CEO Cliff Hawk will be a featured speaker at the 2024 Phocuswright Conference in Fort Lauderdale. Hawk will participate in the highly anticipated “New Technology and Startup” panel, sharing insights on the cutting-edge advancements driving the future of travel planning and luxury experiences. Dawn Travel has [PR.com]

PageLightPrime, a leading provider of innovative legal practice management software, is thrilled to announce the appointment of Alan Tuback as their new President. Tuback brings a wealth of experience and industry expertise to PageLightPrime, having previously founded and led Soluno. With a proven track record of success in the legal technology space, Tuback is poised to lead PageLightPrime to even greater heights. As [PR.com]

SABRE has secured the first long-term location for SOTO Method, an emerging leader in fitness, solidifying its presence in the New York City market. [PR.com]

BUILD Magazine unveils the winners of this year’s Architecture Awards. Myles Nelson McKenzie Design has won project design awards from BUILD Magazine for "Most Trusted Bespoke Residential & Commercial Design Firm 2024-USA and Best Contemporary Beach Side Property Design.” [PR.com]

Etechify Technologies Private Limited, one of the best digital marketing agencies in India, is thrilled to announce the expansion of its service offerings. [PR.com]

Decade of Growth: LaserLightShow.ORG's Vegan Facebook Groups Flourish Over the past 10 years, their expanding online community has become a vibrant hub for plant-based enthusiasts to connect, share, and inspire each other. [PR.com]

Friscopromos.com holiday campaign promotes giving memorable & meaningful custom products to valued employees, friends, and customers. [PR.com]

The Boys of Chokoloskee are hosting the "Freedom Reigns" drag event on November 9 at the HavAnnA Cafe in Chokoloskee, FL. This vibrant celebration emphasizes diversity, empowerment, and community connection through the art of drag, featuring performances by talented queens like Alandra Matthews and Mya Valentine Lords. The event aims to create an inclusive atmosphere, honoring feminism and the historical significance of [PR.com]

Whether shopping for friends, family, or colleagues, this fun-sized book is sure to spark conversation and bring some unexpected humor to the holiday season. Words like "moist," "load," and "soil" have a way of making people squirm, chuckle, or even cringe. In his latest release, "The Book of Those Words," author and branding expert Russ Napolitano delves into the humor and [PR.com]

Customers can use Dataddo’s optimized LinkedIn connectors to reliably and securely bring LinkedIn performance data into analytics tools and databases. [PR.com]

Vortex, [Stik Records] Actually Playlist.2006

Valentino Kanzyani - Top 20 Chart November 2006