As we enter the eighth month since the pandemic began, it is becoming evident that many changed behaviours are becoming habits. While external forces such as lock downs, concern for safety, or just plain availability and changed distribution systems may have prompted the initial shift, along the way we've seen internal reasons emerge for staying with the new pattern - we found … [Read more...]
In Search of Serendipity
I’ve noticed a curious thing recently, and it relates directly back to creativity and the ability to track trends, which is at the heart of marketing and entrepreneurship. I think of myself as a reasonably creative person and one that spots trends early, but I’ve realized that a lot of that ability stems from serendipity – chance encounters, discussions with strangers, … [Read more...]
Being Word of Mouth Worthy
I’ll freely admit to being someone who gets more excited about letters than numbers. As in I’d much rather play with words and sentence structure, than statistics or budgets. However, a couple numbers caught my eye while reading a piece of research from Rutgers University related to consumer behavior and marketing: - 70% of word of mouth conversations happen face-to-face - … [Read more...]
Customer Delight as Marketing
This week I’ve been preparing material for a couple upcoming workshops and client presentations this fall. I’ve been mixing it in with a healthy dose of cabin life admittedly, but it’s been fun to get ahead of a couple of projects that will be “coming in hot” once I return to Vancouver later this month. Two of them are about customer service as marketing, which I prefer to call … [Read more...]
13 Consumer trends to monitor post-pandemic
This week I’ve been doing a round-up of studies about consumer behaviour during the pandemic. I’ve been digging into the McKinsey Report, Ernst and Young data, my own primary research, as well as reading papers and e-books by several respected thought leaders in the area. I’ve outlined a summary below. And just a heads up – they are valuable in terms of recognizing the threats … [Read more...]
