Argentum Blog

Argentum's blog, Marketing Op-Ed, highlights interesting, real-world examples of marketing with a little bit (okay, a lot) of opinion thrown in.  It's written by Susan Silver, President of Argentum Strategy Group, with the occasional guest blogger added to the mix.

Social Marketing Is Not Free

Social Networking Isn’t Free. My clients often tell me some variation of “My teenaged daughter thinks my business should have a Facebook site.” Or the client will want to know if they should be blogging or using Twitter. Or they might ask what, exactly, is Twitter. They are typically intrigued that there might be a free way to...

Branding Irrelevance

A while back, I got a call from one of my B2B clients. They said “One of our competitors just came out with a branded product so we need brand names for our products too”. I asked them to tell me a little more about the situation, and they explained: A competitor’s new, branded product met a longstanding unmet need in the...

Permission To Say “No”

The businesses I meet with are often struggling to figure out which marketing tactics they should be using. This is where having a marketing strategy can help: It gives you permission to say “no” to tactics which will not clearly help you achieve your business goals. No matter what the size your business or brand, I am willing to bet...

10-Point Scale Fan Club

This blog post is guest authored by Dr. Anne Beall, President of Beall Research and Training. Anne is also the author of the succinct and very useful book Strategic Market Research. I asked Anne to write this post because I have found that it is sometimes challenging to convince clients that using a 10-point scale for their customer satisfaction...

Defining “Marketing”

It seems like everyone I talk to uses the word “marketing” to mean something different. Often, it’s used interchangeably with the word “selling”. This isn’t surprising, because in the evolution of a company, marketing often begins in the sales department as a tactical support function responsible for generating...

Every company should do these two things even if they don’t use Twitter

So my mother asked me about Twitter last week. My clients often ask me about it, too. They’ve heard the buzz, aren’t really sure what it is, but are concerned that they’re missing out on a great tactic. My first response to most questions about tactics is to refer back to the company’s brand strategy. If a tactic...

Marketing tagline lessons from Children’s Memorial Hospital

Fact: A great tagline is hard to write. Now, okay ones are pretty easy to come up with, and I have clients all the time who try to save money by tackling this task themselves. But there’s a tangible difference between the poetry of one written by a trained professional using a clear positioning statement, and one written by a well-meaning...

AT&T: How to not measure customer satisfaction

I had one of those circle-of-hell phone calls with AT&T last week. I worked with 3 separate individuals, 2 of whom were great and one who put me on hold for 30 full minutes. A few days later, I received an automated satisfaction survey via telephone. The survey assumed that I had only worked with one AT&T employee. There was therefore no...

Ho Ho Holiday e-cards

I’ve been receiving more holiday e-cards than usual this year, no doubt due primarily to the economy, but I’m happy trees are being saved, regardless of the reason. Two cards I’ve received really stand out. One is a 100% direct, awesome viral marketing hit. So great, in fact, that this is the second year it’s run, and it...

Missed customer loyalty opportunity

My mom recently experienced a problem with an OXO can opener. She sent OXO an email about her experience, and, to their credit, OXO immediately responded with an apology and a full refund. My mom was very satisfied. The story doesn’t end here, though. About a week later, a large package arrived at my parents’ home. Inside was a...