Global brands need to promote themselves in different markets and sometimes the same campaign that’s translated in every language they need to address audiences seems like a great idea. But good translations – when good means you use the correct equivalent in a given language – is not enough to effectively communicate brand values, a campaign’s quirky message or a product’s benefits.

The next step to render a campaign local and to make it work for a certain culture is to adapt it. Translate, then adapt. It’s a two step process, but the latter seems to be forgotten way too often. Sometimes it’s budgetary constraints, sometimes it’s because people think it would sound cool and trendy, other times it’s just because people lack the experience of localizing global campaigns. Continue reading

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As taste, needs and standards differ from one person to the next, having everyone appreciate a company or product or person is impossible. At a point or another, negative comments are about to emerge, via email, via the phone or publicly as comments to web sites, blogs and articles about a certain business or business person published on outlets allowing readers to post their opinions. Some are caused by something we did, others just come from differences of opinion.

There are many ways to address negative comments, depending on what triggers them, who and where posts them and each and every company’s strategy. But regardless of how we respond to negative comments – explaining a situation or its circumstances, challenging the person who authored the comment, apologizing or trying to change the subject, knowing when to just let go, be the bigger person and move on is also very important. Continue reading

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There are many ways in which a company can end up looking bad in front of customers, the press, or just about everyone. And it seem that this week I am prompted to explore many of them.

Finding the right companies and the right people to help your business grow is always a great idea. Hiring a great HR manager to make sure your staff is top notch, hiring the write PR and marketing agency, these are complicated tasks that not all companies get right.

But once you hire someone that’s really good at what they do, make sure you are familiar with the campaigns they run for you! Imagine this: one of the sites I sometimes write for gets this great targeted email proposing a very interesting contest . The message is well written, it’s clear they did some research before and you can’t wait to get started. Unfortunately, you want to have the story published by the end of the day and the person contacting you did not answer. You pick up the phone and call the company behind the campaign – they don’t know who the person is, what the campaign is about and their marketing officer is not in. Continue reading

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When trying to reach a global market, many companies (with enough relevant examples in the IT&C industry) rely on strategic and local partners and resellers to place and sell their products and services. What they sometimes tend to overlook is that promoting the product or service is as important and can become a shared task. While initially new partners might need guidance to understand the overall strategy, your product’s top selling benefits and the type of customers you are targeting, over time then can turn into strong regional allies.

Think of a big release of a new product or service. You might draft the communication plan, have the new literature, press and blogger pitches, press release and special offers ready and then share them in due time with your partner network. They might, in turn, reach out to their customer base, press contacts and enthusiastic evangelists, boosting your promotion effort.

Of course, some will be more savvy when it comes to PR and Marketing, others might need some ongoing guidance. You could suggest how they can reach out to media outlets, how they can identify where the potential customers who need to be informed about the product or service are. If they need convincing, you need to focus on their benefits: properly communicating with customers, audiences, the press means more business coming their way. That does also mean a share of the income goes to you, but the main beneficiaries are the partners.

When considering a successful partnership, businesses need to stop thinking in terms of sales alone. Yes, how much a partner makes by selling your product is important. But can you also collaborate on increasing brand awareness, spreading the word about your product and getting more revenue for yourself and the partner in question? Can you collaborate on getting feedback from their customers to help improve your products and services and subsequently sell more, maybe even for a better price?

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Do you really listen to those around you? Family, friends, employers, employees, clients, acquaintances, bartenders, would you say you actually know how to and can really listen to them? I’d say that theoretically, a lot of us know how to. Everyone who had a few college classes talking about active listening, please raise your hand now! But I think we phase out our knowledge, the very same way as we tune out commercials, product placements in movies, people we’re not interested in, things that bother us. And I also believe we sometimes overlook and downright forget the benefits of opening our mind and souls to those around us by listening.

It took reading a great book, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone by Dr. Mark Goulston – to remember the benefits of listening, the techniques and the investment it takes to make it all work. I know what some of you would say! All shrinks think they know how to listen and help you, but what does it have to do with business? I for one know for sure you can pretty much find valid business advice almost anywhere, so a psychiatrist that gets hired by businesses to get them to work better sounds like a sweet deal to me.

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