One of the things I studied in college was business, and there's something I learned quickly: You have to know how to talk the talk. True, business jargon has existed for years, but it seemed to reach new heights during the last 20 years—such ridiculous heights, in fact, that there has been a well-deserved backlash by some of the very companies who may have had a hand in the problem.
TRC Consultants has enjoyed favorable market share for a number of years with its powerful PHDWin suite of software for the petroleum industry. As part of a recent international expansion, TRC translated PHDWin into Russian and renamed the regional product offering PHD Precise.
Tuesday we were surprised to see that our package had arrived early. Everyone gathered around to see it as I began cutting into the large cardboard box. The result was better than any of us could have imagined.
Let me start from the beginning, let me back up the truck. We had our offices renovated not too long ago with a new Digett sign, new light fixtures, and new paint throughout. Everything looked great, but the freshly painted walls were a little bland—they needed some help.
We all know times have been tough, of late. Fear not—I'm not going to launch into a lengthy analysis of potential causes of the economic meltdown. After all, I'm in marketing, so I'm a little more concerned about potential effects. In any economic downturn, a plethora of experts in micro-/macro-financial issues and experts in worldwide market analysis will share with you their years of strategic wisdom—though little of it may apply to you and even less of it will make sense.
Marketing is often presented as a game of numbers. However, with an emphasis squarely on the figures, the importance of the task or goal at hand can, sometimes, be ignored. The trick is not allowing a focus on metrics and analytics to convince you they can always be substituted for a simple discussion with your clients.
In that spirit, we're inviting you to talk with us about whether we're meeting your needs through our own website. We can look at the numbers all day, but page views and bounce rates only tell us so much. In the end, you are the ultimate arbiter of whether or not we're doing our job—properly, honestly, and openly. We're asking you for a ruling.
We're lucky to have a cooler-than-cool, ice-cold client like Marlowe Candle Company. Marlowe specializes in hand-poured, perfectly scented candles of great variety. Their scents range from Honeysuckle to Whiskey Sour and include holiday favorites like Fall Harvest, Marlowe Christmas, and Candy Corn.
Authenticity is something we believe in around here—notwithstanding recent activities to the contrary. We're not the only ones talking about this, of course; consumers have long craved personal and meaningful service from the corporate world. The way to foster this, we believe, is to restore conversation to the marketplace—something a static page on a website doesn't necessarily do.
Our first look at Twitter was, admittedly, a little bit of a lightweight. That is, we talked about the service and gave a high-level description of what it is, but we didn't really get to talk much about how you should (and should not) use it.
