4 links ad agencies ought to follow to help new business efforts-RSW/US roundup for 2/1

Because there’s more great stuff out there than anyone can possibly get to, we thought we’d point you to some of the noteworthy links from last week:


Online Branded Communities: Misguided and Missing the Point: If you ask brand managers the purpose of online communities, the reply you’ll most often hear is “customer engagement.” Among marketers, this term is more prevalent than Frisbees at a dog beach. But the real question is this: Are brands providing meaningful and engaging experiences to their customers through their online communities? Kathy Baughman & Steve Hershberger, AMA Marketing Power

RSW Comment: We’ll let you click the link to ge the answer, but important to realize , per the post, “half of the brands in the study were still in the social marketing experimentation stage.” Some interesting best practices in the rest of the post.


Why Your Voice Mails Are Ignored, and What To Do Instead: “I leave voice mail messages all day long for prospects,” the salesperson bemoaned. “Why don’t people call me back?” I didn’t need to listen to his calls to give an answer. The same reasons apply to all telesales people leaving voice mails. Pick any three (or more) of the following reasons. Art Sobczak, Telesales Magic

RSW Comment: Traditional prospecting methods often get overshadowed by social media, but Art’s tips can compliment the mix you, ideally, are already employing for new business.

175 Million Users Per Day Log Into Facebook: Half of all registered users still log in to Facebook every day, says Sandberg in the interview. That’s 175 million people. And that doesn’t include Facebook Connect logins, only those people that visit the Facebook website. The numbers start to become a bit staggering but the one nagging question is revenue and profitability. Frank Reed, Marketing Pilgrim

RSW Comment: Well that’s the real question isn’t it? Who is paying attention to all those ads on FB?

Is Your Lead Generation System Causing You to Lose Clients: It's simple to drop someone from your target list; having dropped them, they are out of sight and out of mind. Your sight, your mind, that is. But they have memories of you. Did you simply drop them? Did you not return the last call? Did you cancel some meeting or event? Did you give the screened-out client any indication that they had been screened out? Most firms don't have any particular approach to screening out prospects; they simply stop doing what they were doing. Yet the same people would never drop a social relationship-Charles H. Green, raintoday.com

RSW Comment: Some valid points on lead generation and the screening process.