Try a Touch Point Audit

The Canadian Marketing Association's Canadian Marketing Blog featured a thoughtful article this week recommending that all businesses should do a "touch point audit" on an annual basis to ensure that they are providing their clients or customers with the best possible experience. The article is authored by SalesFertilizer.com's founder, Shelley McQuade. Essentially, McQuade argues that professionals get wrapped up in their day-to-day business, time goes by, and they take their touch points for granted.

McQuade recommends the following process of a touch point audit:

First, establish your positioning. Sit down and decide what message you want to convey. Then document it. Next, pull together samples in the three key categories [communications and media - advertising through invoicing; environment or space; and the people delivering the goods] and run them through your "positioning" filter. Are they on target or wandering off in a different direction? Prioritize and identify your biggest "touch point" offenders and plan to change them ASAP. You should set a three-month goal to get all of your offenders in line.

I think making it a priority to reexamine your touch points each year in order to ensure that you're doing all you can to serve your customers or clients in the best possible way is great advice.

Friday Breakthrough: Clotaire, Conan, and Stephen

The Friday Breakthrough is Ottawa's weekly roundup of some of the Internet's best marketing and social media articles for a less-than-intense day at the office.

1. Clotaire Rapaille is a fascinating character in the world of marketing. He is currently working for a "completely neurotic" "sadomaschist[ic]" client with a "primal reptilian core"... aka Quebec City. His words, not mine, I assure you. The Globe and Mail reports that Rapaille is getting a $300,000 paycheque for his analysis of the city and a resulting strategy to give its image a facelift. That's a whole lot of money, but apparently this guy gets results. Some happy customers include Dubai and Signapore. The website for his company "Archetype Discoveries Worldwide" describes his "Archetype Studies" approach: striving to find the answers to the question "why do people do what they do?" by combining "a psychiatrist's depth of analysis with a businessman's attention to practical concerns". Want more of an explanation? So do I. However, according to the Globe and Mail's article, "it can cost as much as $135,000 to get information contained in the studies has has already done". Fascinating.

2. The Internet is a buzz due to the fact that Conan O'Brien (@ConanOBrien) is randomly following one young lady named Sarah Killen (@LovelyButton) on Twitter. Her world has been turned upside down in a very short time for simply being the only person this very famous person is following: "she [now has] nearly 19,000 followers, a new iMac, a free wedding gown, wedding rings, $2,600 in donations for her cancer walk, and the chance to meet Ludacris". As you read this blog post, I believe her 15 minutes are just about up.

3. Stephen Harper is taking a page from Barack Obama's book, reaching out to younger voters and interacting with them using using social media. The TalkCanada YouTube channel enables Canadians to submit their questions for the Prime Minister. He will answer a selection of top-voted questions on YouTube next Tuesday. So far there have been 65,080 votes on 873 questions from 2,496 people.

"The Death of Old Marketing"? Sorta... Not Really.

Last Tuesday, the Globe and Mail hosted an online Q&A session with Ryan Caligiuri, a marketing specialist from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Caligiuri is a proponent of "emotional marketing" and employing the following strategies:

• Communicating powerfully with the goal of evoking emotion;

• Building movements and engaging communities;

• Creating products and services that are worth talking about;

• Breaking current models and introducing solutions;

• Storytelling.

Although his pitch in the Globe and Mail was entitled "The Death of Old Marketing", Caligiuri admits in the Q&A session that this phrase was an exaggeration to attract readers to the discussion. While he does argue for "new" approaches to marketing, he acknowledges that if traditional marketing means are working for you, you should stick with what you're doing.

In my opinion, the Q&A with Caligiuri didn't really live up to the hype. Case in point, here's a direct quote from the expert: "Marketing directors to new graduates are all stuck in 1960" (emphasis added). Another direct quote:

"The interesting thing with ‘new marketing’ is that it’s not new at all. It’s been around for many years. However, new is all in the mind of the CEO, CMO or new graduate who might be learning about these principles for the first time. And through hundreds of conversations with marketing professionals and business owners calling it ‘new’ is still very much appropriate. Now, they are not new, but how many organizations really follow strategies of finding those with similar biases and build a product and story for them?"

I found it disappointing that Caligiuri used such absolutes and unsubstantiated claims, because such inaccuracies weakened any legitimate arguments he may have had, such as the merits of emotional marketing. Give the session a read and let us know what you think!

5 Useful SEO and Web Marketing Articles by MB

Okay, okay. I'm only linking to articles on MB's home site, MarketingBreakthroughs.com. These articles have been around for awhile, but I think readers of the Daily Breakthrough should be checking these out.

• 6 More Tips for Improving the Copy on Your Website

• How to Search Engine Optimize Your Website

• 7 Easy Ways to Improve the User Experience in Your Website

• Turning Your Website into a Money-Making Webstore

• How Good is Your Website? Take the "MB Test" and Find Out!

More articles are available, of course. Check out the MB Knowledge Centre now.