In our research we’ve found a strong link between the positive impact a brand has on people’s lives and brand performance. So, to help you consider markets in human terms, here are seven essential elements of market anatomy:

1. Bellies
The most fundamental thing that people seek in consumption is basic nourishment. While countless brands—from your local farmer’s market to Whole Foods to the Wal-Marts and PepsiCos of the world—aim specifically to keep people’s bellies satisfied, there’s almost always an opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives by making a difference in their bellies. Swedish meatball, anyone?

2. Skin
Skin offers protection from the environment, but people need more safety and security. How can your brand fortify these feelings? Financial products promise such peace of mind; but after years of violating the market’s (read “people’s”) trust, fortification has become a laceration. While generally we have observed a strong correlation between the positive impact a brand has on people’s lives and brand monetary value, among financial-services brands, brand monetary value far outpaces the good those brands have done for their clients. No wonder the wounded market reacted so viscerally to Greg Smith’s public resignation from Goldman Sachs. But the need for security hasn’t gone away, and smart brands like Wal-Mart and Hyundai have stepped up, providing a valuable safety net in tough economic times.

3. Ears and Mouths
Humans are social animals; and marketing can be a powerful conduit for people’s relationships. Social networks like Facebook and service businesses like McDonald’s give people a place to connect, but so do less obvious brands. Though Microsoft is sometimes berated as a lumbering giant, we’ve found it to be among the front of the pack here, with V-Positive respondents consistently ranking it among the top 10 brands that satisfy their social needs. Just look at what they’ve built with their Xbox community.

4. Muscles
People want to puff their chests out a little bit and feel good about themselves. Marketers can help them. Infomercial marketer Beachbody has busted that genre by literally helping people puff out their chests, sweeping Capitol Hill in the process, while on the other end of the spectrum, wine connoisseurs, foodies, fashionistas and the like find confidence in their product expertise, a mutually beneficial way for marketers of any type to help people feel good about themselves.

5. Eyes
Can you help people realize their ideal vision of themselves? In our research we’ve found technology brands to perform well here because they are instrumental in people’s goal pursuits in all areas of their lives. Take Google: Want to learn how to run faster? Google it. Perform better at your job? Google it. Play guitar like a badass? Google it. Non-technology brands have succeeded here too. Campbell’s, for example, saw an uptick in helping consumers at the outset of the new year, when many were trying to idealize their diets, using soup as a tool, or the tool, in their arsenal. The unifying theme between Google and Campbell’s is that both are instruments for people’s achievements.

6. Brains
Sometimes people just want to unplug and take a break from goals, relationships and so on. This is a nice idea…that brains hate. People have a need to keep their brains focused, even when they’re trying to relax. Aimlessly browsing the web doesn’t help, but books and casual games do. In this light the move toward experiential marketing approaches is a positive one. The “gamification” of brands—like Red Bull’s Kart Fighter racing game—is good for people, as is the immersive take on retail. In V-Positive, Apple rates among the best brands in delivering engaging experiences; Apple keeps its retail customers engaged and earns a just reward in the process.

7. Hearts
People live for the moments that touch their hearts and make them truly happy, ephemeral and fleeting though those moments may be. Nowhere is the personal perspective on markets more important than here. Google has hit the nail on the head several times in its “Search Stories” videos; c’mon, you didn’t even come close to shedding a tear at the end of “Parisian Love”? At the same time, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s have both been successful at showing how they can provide a moment of levity in an otherwise ordinary or stressful day. Happiness doesn’t have to be the only thing on offer, but adding a little slice of it in people’s lives can go a long way. In V-Positive consumers consistently rate Google, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s among the top 10 happiness-inducing brands, ratings that are in step with these brands’ impressive financial valuations.

So remember the human qualities of your market. By connecting with customers on human terms, everyone stands to gain.

By Luke Kachersky, Ph.D. and Dawn Lerman, Ph.D.  Kachersky and  Lerman are, respectively, project coordinator and director of The Center for Positive Marketing at Fordham University, and are faculty members of the university’s Schools of Business.

Contact them at luke.kachersky@centerforpositivemarketing.org and dawn.lerman@centerforpositivemarketing.org

Follow them on Twitter @PositiveMktg and @kachersky

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

It’s pretty scary…the stuff of nightmares. Many have attributed the popularity of zombies in our culture to not-so-latent fears about the economy or terrorism, suggesting that these ghouls symbolize a loss of control. It also has been suggested that we see ourselves in these mindless creatures for how quickly our appetites run amok.

I see it as a metaphor for the effect that social media is having on more and more of us every day. No longer able to process information, we rip through new media, biting and chewing and spitting out content, barely digesting any of it. Ravenously we move on to the next. Indeed, barely chewed facts, items and stories pass through us onto the web like offal. Our constant tweets and updates are mere bits and pieces, carrying links like so many worms, each containing the shred of something devoured earlier. Or something like that.

I myself am turning. Last night I tried reading an article in a magazine. I found myself jumping over paragraphs, skipping entire chunks, gluttonous. Unsatisfied, I started another article. Then another. Within minutes I was in front of my laptop lapping up more, more and more! Already an addictive personality, once I taste blood, I cannot stop gorging. The more I feast, the less I retain. A vicious cycle if ever there was one.

Advertising was a major precursor to all this. Having to manage narrative and sell strategy in 30 seconds or less, we in the ad business all become conditioned to making and receiving short-form content. “Nobody reads body copy!”

Implied is the notion that we are no longer doing a good job at listening and learning. On the other hand, maybe we’re doing a terrific job. Remember the Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics speed-reading program? Zipping through pages was considered a great gift, almost magical.

As a species we’ve adapted to a world of streaming content, chewing through it more and more urgently. More channels. More screens. More friends. More, more, more! We are content zombies!

Because, as one of the remaining mortals exclaims during George A. Romero’s remake of his own classic zombie film Night of the Living Dead, “We are them.”

Obviously, then, creating meaningful content (stuff that gets digested) is extremely difficult. Yet, when we do manage to create humanly relevant ideas, it’s ever so satisfying. Like a shot to the brain!

Steffan Postaer is Executive Creative Director of gyro San Francisco

Follow him @Steffan1

He blogs regularly at Gods of Advertising.

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

Women are almost completely responsible for Pinterest’s success—according to Inside Network’s AppData. In fact, 97 percent of the site’s users are women.

Women trust recommendations from Pinterest more than any other platform, per BlogHer’s annual study on women and social media. Eighty-one trust Pinterest versus Facebook (67 percent) and Twitter (73 percent).

Why? Because women trust other women in their circles more than anyone else. As a result, 47 percent of women bought something based off a recommendation from Pinterest where as only 33 percent bought because of a recommendation on Facebook.

It’s no surprise that brands have been jumping on the Pinterest bandwagon in troves and have seen their followers grow over night. Many products are getting more exposure than they ever could on Facebook and Twitter, and it’s relatively easy to see why.

To sum it up, here are four reasons why Pinterest is superior to Facebook when targeting women:

1. It is simple, clean and fuss free. This makes browsing delightful and easy: two main components to marketing success. Because of Pinterest’s visually appealing layout, consumers just see a picture with very little text. Facebook on the other hand is very word heavy and can turn off potential consumers.

2. Marketers have an open window into consumers’ interests. They can easily see a gold mine of information on potential customers. For example, an interior design marketing team can see who is influential in the ‘home decor’ section. They can then start following and see what trends people are repining and liking.

3. It’s relaxing. Pinterest creates a curated experience for its users in a fairly anonymous way. No constant updating of feeds, no overload of people’s lives. On Pinterest it’s about enjoying your hobbies—not having to like someone’s status or wish anyone a Happy Birthday. It lets users share experiences in a negative-free zone, briefly comment and move on without the weight of Facebook etiquette.

4. Brands have found cool ways to use it. Martha Stewart Living and Kate Spade are pinning like crazy with overwhelming response by adding more than 19,000 and 34,000 followers respectively. Kotex even has bragging rights for hosting one of the first Pinterest campaigns. The brand found 50 “inspiring” women in Israel and looked at what they were pinning on Pinterest. Then, Kotex sent the women a virtual gift. If she pinned the gift, she then got a real one in the mail that was based on something she had pinned. The result: success—nearly 100% of the women pinned and commented on their gifts.

All told, Pinterest has brought women together online in a way never seen before and tapped into an extremely influential consumer market without even trying. In many ways, this makes Pinterest genuinely more appealing than Facebook and far more trendy among women consumers who get the picture.

Melissa Pitts is a marketing intern at gyro. She blogs regularly at Newstaco.com, FlamingTortillas.com and Americas Quarterly.
Follow her at @mpittsm

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

1. It’s all about the packaging. In his unveiling of Katniss and Peeta to the world, Cinna took a negative and turned it into a positive. Given that they were from District 12 (the poor mining district), Katniss wondered if they were to be dressed as miners or stripped naked and covered in coal dust. Instead, he made Katniss “the girl who was on fire,” right down to the synthetic flame of the headdress. Yes, when you’re competing against 11 other products on the global stage, it helps to be the one that’s on fire.

2. Don’t be afraid to flaunt your talents. Within a company, marketing can get lost in the mix if it isn’t communicated properly to everyone (the CEO, the CFO, IT, everyone). That’s why it’s good to remember that if you’ve got the skills and your peers are ignoring you, make them notice. Or shoot right at their heads just like Katniss, who unleashed an arrow straight at the Gamemakers’ table, skewering an apple that sat before them in a pig’s mouth and pinned it to the wall. Your message needs to be communicated loud and clear, just like hers.

3. Don’t be afraid to make your own rules. Today it’s Pinterest. Yesterday it was Facebook. Who knows what the next hot marketing channel will be. Marketers have more opportunity than ever to share their brand with the world. This means taking risks, experimenting and making up new rules as they go. (SPOILER ALERT) Like Katniss and Peeta, who threatened the Gamemakers with their poison berries, marketers need to consider drastic measures as the media mix continues to evolve daily.

4. You’ll never survive without your sponsors. Let’s call this one the homage to Rush Limbaugh. It’s one thing to be edgy and a challenger brand, but you still need to be likable enough to have supporters (or, in his case, sponsors). Otherwise, you will end up like Rush or Belvedere vodka—left trying to explain and coping with lost revenue. Katniss and Peeta received several gifts from their sponsors just in the nick of time. None was more important than the medicine Katniss received to save Peeta and herself.

5. Make sure your message is humanly relevant. Katniss deliberated with Haymitch as to how she should handle her debut interview. How would she portray herself to the world? She opted to tell the truth about her family and her sister Prim, whom she loved dearly. Today more than ever, it’s important to be humanly relevant. It’s too easy to be numb with all of the messaging thrown our way. Consumers want to feel emotion. They also want someone or something to root for— make that your brand.

Kenneth Hein is director of North American marketing for gyro, the global ideas shop

Follow him @KennethHein

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

Advertising was based on a simple funnel concept called the Hierarchy of Effects. The funnel said, push messaging out using these three networks and some print and radio, and people will become aware, form an opinion, make a commitment to buy, and then stay loyal to the brand–the traditional push/pull advertising model. Then the model broke—actually, it shattered into thousands of fragments.

After Al Gore re-invented the Internet (wink), everything changed and the funnel was turned on its head.  Now, people started to form opinions based on well, other people. Networks and communities arose, and some voices were stronger than others. And the others followed.

Social media went from an interesting idea to one of the most powerful tools in the toolbox. Why? Because advocacy started to help form people’s opinions before branding. This is the polar opposite of the shotgun approach of many forms of traditional media.

So where does this leave us? What is media? The answer: It is a series of connections. Today’s media mix is about finding the best ways to connect with the consumer or decision maker.

It is about finding the best ways to connect with the target, with our planning, account and creative peers, and with the ever-increasing world of vendors who bring new ideas to the table every day. Together, we have the opportunity to become an incubator of media firsts via all of the emerging outlets as well as the tried-and-true.

In fact, sometimes the best route is still the traditional route. That aspect of the mix isn’t broken. There is nothing to fix. We just need to connect the old with the new. Awareness building and advocacy are far stronger together than separately.

There is more creativity and excitement around developing media plans than ever before. And the way we connect with our audiences will only continue to become deeper, richer and more engaging. For folks involved in media planning, or better yet, connections planning (such as myself) there has never been a better time to be alive.

Richard Lefkowitz is Connections Planning Director of gyro North America

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

The iPod was introduced in 2001, the iPhone in 2007 and the iPad in 2010. I love the evolution of the products. And the new iPad 3 delivers phenomenal technological advancements including 2048-by-1536 resolution, 44 percent greater color saturation and 3.1 million pixels all powered by the new A5X chip. However, I can’t help but wonder what the next new product will be. I can’t help but wonder what this iconic company will introduce, and I can’t wait to see how it will impact the world economy from manufacturing to sales and marketing.

More intriguing, I wonder how Apple will keep the legacy of Mr. Jobs alive. The stock price is still there. In fact, with the iPad 3, Apple broke the $600-per-share mark, and sales are stronger than ever (3 million tablets sold as of print), but how long will it stay there? Will Apple deliver on Jobs’ wish to be a company that is continuously inventing, continuously evolving—and will the company that lives on Infinite Loop live up to his wishes and live on into infinity?

Why am I so curious and eager to see what’s next? Maybe Apple has spoiled me. But I bet I’m not the only one anticipating what’s really next. Yes, a lot of us have learned to wait to experience the new product before we comment (and, as it turns out, I wrote this post on my iPad 2 the same day the new iPad was made available to the public). I don’t need to wait and experience the new product. Virtually all of us knew that the 4G product would be amazing. I’m sure I’ll like the next iteration of the iPad once I get my hands on one, but really, what’s next?

Why do we care so much about Apple’s next new technology? Because only once or twice in a generation does a company, a culture, a movement come along that changes the world, improves humanity and impacts the world’s economy. And as a marketer, I am eager to see how it will impact the marketing landscape.

I listened to the announcement and watched the unveiling of the new iPad, and I saw the immediate impact it had on three other company’s stock prices (their suppliers). This started me thinking about the impact that this company has on my world and my profession, but then I realized the impact that it has on the entire world’s economy—suppliers, shippers, app developers, e-commerce, the music and movie industries, and manufacturers (of everything: headsets, phone cases, chip makers, processors, glass, etc.).

Further, I recall the Jobs biography written by Walter Isaacson and how a child in a developing country picked up an iPad and inherently knew how to use it, even after having never interacted with such technology before. I can’t wait to see what Apple does for the advancement and education of today’s youth. I know it’s coming as I’ve seen the announcement about Apple, textbooks and universities (Apple and NYU are expected to make a statement this month).

So, Tim Cook, we are waiting. I missed it at the unveiling of the new iPad, I missed Jobs saying, “Oh, and one more thing …” I hope you continue the trajectory of this incredible American company, but most of all I hope you keep the tradition of surprising and delighting us and keep saying “one more thing …”

Keith Turco is president of gyro New York

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

He gives plenty of texture around the comment (how agencies overcompensate for various deficiencies by stressing digital, etc.), but one can take the comment at face value and still glean plenty, especially in the wake of Steve Jobs’ recent passing.

From day one, Jobs understood how much technology depended on the human touch, figuratively and literally. And that if there were a one-word catch-all, it wouldn’t be “digital” but rather “design.” And design, Jobs said, was not merely how good something looked but how well it worked.

To him (and for us), digital was more than just tools but extensions of our limbs and imaginations. Not hardware and software. Lifeware! Sight, feel and now voice are the operating principles that drive Apple. Not “technology solutions,” a phrase, like the word digital, that couldn’t sound more inhuman if it tried.

Oh, the irony! For the last decade or longer, we marketing geniuses have gone great guns trying to bolster our digital creds, doing everything in our power to look savvy, often at the expense of working savvy. We learned the hard way that flashy microsites were likely meaningless to our clients’ businesses. And hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube often meant winning a popularity contest without any prize. We realized that brands aren’t social just because they’re on Facebook and Twitter. And so on …

The costs have been tremendous—to us and to our clients. But make no mistake, because clients are as culpable as we are. The clamoring for digital came from all corners. I’d argue that social media (another techie term) has exploded the myth of digital, reminding us tweet by tweet that people are and always will be living, breathing human beings; in other words: analog.

However painful the learning curve, this is good news for those of us toiling in Ad Land. Agencies are at their best when we put ideas before clients and, dare I say, technology.

Steffan Postaer is Executive Creative Director of gyro San Francisco

Follow him @Steffan1

He blogs regularly at Gods of Advertising.

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

No wonder we have a reputation of being entitled. We have more than we could ever want and need thrown at our feet, 24/7.

As both a member of Generation Y and an ad man, I have some insider tips to pass your way—some do’s and don’ts—that can help you reach our ever-stimulated, ever-distracted group.

Five Ways to Gain Our Attention

1. Make it participatory: I still see TV, print and even online campaigns that simply shout a message without inviting participation. In this hands-on world, you can’t afford to miss that opportunity, especially not with the active and tech-savvy Generation Y.

2. Make it easy: We have media ADD. If we don’t get it right away, or at least see how to get it, we’ll lose interest and move on to something we do know how to use.

3. Make it shareable: And not just for Facebook and Twitter, but anywhere and everywhere, especially new trending sites like Pinterest. If you don’t know what that site is yet, Generation Y does, and they are there waiting for you.

4. Take a risk: Gen Y likes daring brands. We’re looking for something that stands out from the crowd in a real way, which rarely happens when you play it safe. Find a great idea, and instead of testing it to death, go with your gut, take a risk, and see how we respond to it in a real-world “test.”

5. Give it meaning: With a reputation for being entitled and spoiled, it’s easy to think we care only about ourselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. We’re altruistic, optimistic, passionate, and want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. Give your message a relevant, meaningful focus, and we could become your most loyal evangelists. Levi’s Go Forth campaign did a pretty good job of capturing that feeling, and Tom’s Shoes wrote it into their business model. You can too.

Five Ways to Lose Our Attention

1. Take yourself too seriously: The power of funny is incredible, especially with Generation Y. We love to laugh. It makes us feel closer to each other and closer to your brand. And your brand doesn’t have to be an Old Spice or Burger King to make a joke. Serious brands can still use humor to illustrate a more serious point. I’d recommend keeping a comedian or two on staff for just such an occasion.

2. Be vague: Mission statements and brand platforms sound great in the boardroom, they but mean next to nothing to a 20-something who will skip your ad after about 0.7 seconds.

3. Give us a product instead of an experience: If you’re VW, you don’t sell cars. You sell a transportation experience. From the moment we consider buying a new car, to the moment years later when we trade it in for a new one, we want to be engaged. Give us an experience, not a product. Kodak thought they sold pictures. Now their business will be the butt of every what-not-to-do marketing case study for years to come.

4. Make fun of us: Take a look at this Samsung Super Bowl ad and tell me there isn’t an army of offended tech geeks—who love waiting in line for the latest iWhatever—eager to bash you online. Making fun of us isn’t the way to convert us.

5. Talk down to us: I’ve heard various decision-makers say things like, “I get it, but our customers won’t,” and “We need to dumb down the language for our customers.” If you think your target market is dumb, it will come across not just in your ads but also in your entire company culture. Try it with Generation Y, and we’ll go hang out with someone who thinks everything we do is brilliant (like Doritos).

So we of Generation Y are a pretty strange bunch, and we like it that way. Learning to reach us isn’t just good business, but it’s also a way to prepare for the future of advertising and marketing. Because we’re going to get older, technology will get only more complex, and the next generation … well, they are even weirder than we are.

Brian Havig is a copywriter at gyro

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

On Feb. 27, I received a handwritten thank you note from the Tiffany’s sales associates who assisted me with my purchase. It’s not uncommon to receive a thank you from Tiffany’s given its reputation for service, but in the same pile of mail was a handwritten thank you from my florist. The florist’s note was the first I’d received after years of doing business with them.

Minutes later, I received a phone call from Pete, the manager of the Lorien Hotel and Spa, inviting my wife and me for a return trip—free of charge—as a result of some service issues we had experienced during our stay. Pete realized that those misfires disrupted an important customer experience (see my note above about “continual travel” and “well deserved”) and offered to make it right.

Significantly impressed with the three simultaneous acts of kindness, I thought to myself that maybe there is a silver lining to the recession. Maybe companies have been reminded that customers are, in fact, important to their success.

A customer is defined as an individual, not a segment that scores the highest on a propensity model or an occupation with a “desirable socioeconomic profile.” A person with feelings and beliefs who has had an experience with a brand, a company representative, a product or service, might be most likely to decide to buy it again, or tell a friend, or both, if that experience was a good one.

In a new study published by Accenture titled The New Realties of “Dating” in the Digital Age, 85 percent of consumers who posted a comment about a negative online experience switched providers. And these consumers are getting harder to please. Customer service expectations have been increasing consistently over the last four years, with 44 percent of consumers saying their expectations are slightly or much higher than the previous year, compared to only 31 percent in 2008.

The study also identifies five potential blind spots over the course of the provider-customer relationship that could predispose customers to switch providers:

*Nice to Meet You – Missing the chance to set the right expectations at the onset of the relationship.
*You Don’t Know Me Anymore – Missing subtler changes that matter in customers’ need for special treatment or reward.
*Cheating Heart – Overlooking signs customers are itching to switch.
*Are You Listening – Failure to offer consumers opportunities to engage with a provider.
*Trinkets Won’t Save Me – Relying on point solutions to satisfy and keep customers.

The “cheating heart” effect points to companies over emphasis on retention, which may cause them to miss important shifts in buying behavior that could signal a future switch in vendors. Thankfully, my florist carefully monitors my purchase patterns and reminds me of purchases I make at certain times of the year (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.), creating a win-win for both of us.

As the researchers note, failure to notice these subtle changes in behavior puts the company at risk for eventually losing the customer. For example, 27 percent of respondents mentioned that they had stayed with their bank/financial services provider but have added another provider (a partial switch), a foot out the door that eventually leads to customer attrition.

So remember to treat your customer as you would a loved one, with respect, kindness and an occasional gift to smooth over any misgivings. If you don’t, that cheating heart might just leave you.

Mark Johnson, CEO of Loyalty 360, in an interview identifying the top loyalty trends for 2011 stated, “Loyalty will focus more on emotions than on rational, incentive-based initiatives. Behavioral economists tell us that economic decision-making is 70 percent emotional and 30 percent rational, which is why incentive-based loyalty programs that tend to be rational do not work well. It’s the emotional side of the decision-making process that creates connected, passionate, engaged customers.“

The thank you cards and the phone call I received were specific to me and my experience. They weren’t form letters generated by a transactional or CRM system, based on my purchase. The notes were handwritten by the people who assisted me and mentioned the specific purchases I made with them.

They were relevant to me, left an impression and got me talking about the experience. I didn’t receive bonus points or special discounts. Instead, I got a response from someone who appreciated my business and cared enough about my experience to reach out to me on a personal and emotional level, which is how you can create connected, engaged customers and prevent “a cheating heart.”

Scott Gillum leads gyro’s Channel Marketing practice and is president of gyro Washington, D.C.

Follow Scott on Twitter @SGillum.

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

As a CMO, you know you haven’t been, nor will you likely be, as accessible for advertisers to reach you with relevant content and messaging during this time of the year. So how should you approach reaching and connecting with your own customers and prime prospects during this same time frame?

It is essential to understand not only the seasonality behind your product and services, but also how available, receptive and engaged your customers will be to hearing from you. Giving proper consideration to seasons of work and play doesn’t apply to just those within a retail holiday consumer environment but also to marketers in all types of businesses. Developing a specific understanding of seasonality within your own industry can help you fine-tune your own advertising efforts.

Online advertising can often be the ideal communication contact for seasonal messaging as the results are practically instantaneous with timely and adaptable messaging.

The Internet Activity Index (IAI) at the Online Publishers Association site has historically monitored category shifts in traffic month to month. It is no surprise that past insight reveals overall Internet traffic to content sites in November and December see declines, whereas traffic involving e-commerce enjoy increases.   Content site declines during these months; however, decreased Internet traffic is not a given and can certainly vary by industry.

Once you’ve determined through historical efforts or online testing when you have higher peak times of interest, you can subsequently be more strategic as to when to allocate a large portion of your budget during times of higher demand.

Your off-season periods can have value as well. Whether these are holiday or summer vacation time frames, these flights can be a great opportunity to examine business challenges from your customers’ perspective and determine how you might help them meet their own end-of-year business goals. These times enable you to secure input from current and prospective customers via surveys, polls or other ways to gather data for future messaging.

Engaging with your key audiences during off-season periods can provide them with time to think more advantageously about their needs and how your products and services can help deliver their desired results. Developing this understanding can also help you look at your 2012 calendars in new and efficient ways.

by Tom Ferry
Media Director

Cross posted at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network