Why we need to hear less from you and more from your customers
Most people old enough to be in senior management roles today know the slogan 'Let your fingers do the walking'. It did wonders for promoting Yellow Pages and joined the advertising hall of fame back in 2002. But how about ‘Let your clients do the talking’? Nope, that doesn’t resonate quite so loudly does it? But it should, because credible endorsements from others are one of the most potent sales tools in business-to-business, especially if you’re selling professional services. PR professionals call this ‘third party endorsement’ (TPE) and, well managed, it can win you business, forge alliances, improve recruitment ... read the full post »
07 January 2011 | Posted by : Andy M Turner | Blog | 1 Comment »
Tagged : communications strategy, marketing, new business, reputation, selling, third party endorsement.
The FT meets ‘The Body’ and a PR car crash ensues
Earlier this month Elle Macpherson, one of the original ‘supermodels’, was interviewed by Lucy Kellaway in The Financial Times. You can read the article here (although you may need to register). It’s a great read, though it left this formerly neutral reader, and I suspect many others, with a rather dim view of ‘The Body’, as she used to be known. It made me wonder read the full post »
25 October 2010 | Posted by : Andy M Turner | Blog | Comment on this post »
Tagged : communications strategy, marketing, media relations, PR, PR firms, public relations, reputation, The Financial Times.
Getting paid promptly is easy, if you know how
A previous post talked about how lawyers don’t market themselves very well. There is one notable exception that I know of and, not surprisingly, it is the firm with the happiest clients according to a Legal Business magazine survey. The firm in question is Liverpool-based Thomas Higgins Partnership (THP), which specialises in commercial debt collection. Marketing has a number of definitions but if you agree that, at its core, it is about finding out what customers want and then satisfying those needs profitably, then THP is clearly an exemplar. Getting paid in reasonable time is probably the biggest bugbear ... read the full post »
01 September 2010 | Posted by : Andy M Turner | Blog | Comment on this post »
Tagged : commercial debt, happy clients, law firms, lawyers, marketing.
Reputation, trust and retail banks
In the UK, high street (retail) banking is dominated by a handful of five, big brands so similar you’d be hard pushed to fit a cigarette paper between them. So news of Metro bank’s launch, which The Telegraph newspaper points out is the first new entrant to this market in 100 years, ought to be welcomed, didn’t it? Especially when you hear its billionaire founder Vernon Hill likes to have fun and plans to “to eliminate every stupid bank rule we can find." How refreshing. Well, on the surface, yes. Any new-comer promising to shake things up and put customers ... read the full post »
08 June 2010 | Posted by : Andy M Turner | Blog | Comment on this post »
Tagged : banks, CNN, Harvard Business Review, Havas, marketing, Metro bank, reputation, Tesco, The Daily Telegraph, trust, Virgin.
Legal services market set to heat up. But does anyone want their law firm to be ‘cool’?
Some would say lawyers deserve all they get reputation-wise: they communicate in a strange, obscure language, deliberately designed to complicate the simple; they inhabit a rarefied, archaic world largely untouched by modern business norms such as offering high customer service levels and value for money. I suspect Luke Johnson’s recent damning column in The Financial Times speaks for many. The British government clearly thinks things need shaking up too because its ‘Legal Services Act’ comes into force next year, and aims to open up and deregulate the market. It has been described by The Times newspaper as ... read the full post »
25 May 2010 | Posted by : Andy M Turner | Blog | 4 Comments »
Tagged : branding, law firms, Legal Services Act, marketing, reputation, social media, The Financial Times, Times newspaper, Twitter, USP.
People judge you by the company you keep. So why do firms accept porn pedlars as Twitter followers?
Like others, I’m interested in keeping up with how businesses are using Twitter and what benefits they accrue. So was keen to read a recent article on this theme penned by international property consultancy Drivers Jonas Deloitte, DJD for short. After a bit of a struggle to find DJD’s Twitter page (they forgot to tell us in the piece), I noticed that the firm had a seemingly impressive number of followers (1100+). Curiosity is something I’m not short of so I delved a bit deeper. As I saw some of the followers’ profiles, the article comment describing Twitter ... read the full post »
20 May 2010 | Posted by : Andy M Turner | Blog | Comment on this post »
Tagged : Google Adsense, marketing, reputation, social media, Twitter.