Richard Fouts

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Entries Categorized as 'Brand awareness'


Why CMOs Aren’t Very Good Salespeople (When it Comes to Selling Brand Awareness)

by Richard Fouts  |  June 11, 2013  |  Submit a Comment

When “awareness” is citied as the justification for a marketing investment, the room can get chilly. This is especially true in sales-driven, b2b circles.  Why the chill?  In the classic purchasing cycle (awareness, evaluation, buy, bond) awareness sits on the opposite side of what your CEO wants: revenue from new and existing customers – preferably [...]

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Category: Brand awareness Digital Marketing Marketing Strategy     Tags:

Location, Location, Location: Don’t Underestimate the Power of Local Search

by Richard Fouts  |  February 13, 2013  |  4 Comments

Have you ever used Google to find and book a restaurant reservation in another city; or a tour in the foreign country you’re about to visit? Ever buy a rare book from a Japanese bookseller?  Though the Internet has made the world smaller, Google reports that 75% of its search activity is from users looking [...]

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Why do you get out of bed every morning?

by Richard Fouts  |  February 7, 2013  |  Submit a Comment

Years ago, a man who loved music as much as anyone of his generation, began going deaf, just as he was becoming recognized as one of the world’s great composers. But he didn’t let his handicap interfere with his destiny. After losing over 90% of his  hearing, he went on to compose one of the [...]

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Category: Brand awareness Digital Marketing     Tags:

Why OnlineMediaDaily Got It Wrong When They Said: “Many Fortune 500 Companies Avoid Social Media

by Richard Fouts  |  August 31, 2012  |  Submit a Comment

In its piece earlier this month (that went all over Twitter) OnlineMediaDaily concludes that many Fortune 500 companies avoid social media as evidenced by their not listing FB and Twitter as a means of contact. This finding of course frames social media in very limited context. The bigger payoff in social media comes from the [...]

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…my chat with Lester Wunderman

by Richard Fouts  |  May 17, 2012  |  Submit a Comment

While in New York recently, I had the opportunity to wander by Lester Wunderman’s office (accompanied by CMO Trish Wheaton who generously made the introduction). At age 91, he’s sharp as a tack and ventures into the office everyday (saying, “what else would I do?”).  Well, I can think of plenty of things I’d do, [...]

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Category: Brand awareness Marketing communications Personal selling     Tags:

March Madness shows why new media is not a zero sum game

by Richard Fouts  |  April 4, 2012  |  Submit a Comment

Where marketers are mistaken, is looking at this new era of promotion as a old vs new media game.  Should I abandon print in favor of digital?  Should I abandon TV in favor of social networks?  Wrong questions… I address this in my note .. Management Guide to Digital Marketing 2.0. Where the new digital [...]

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What does it really mean to ENGAGE the digital customer?

by Richard Fouts  |  April 4, 2012  |  1 Comment

If your agency inserts a call to action at the close of a standard campaign to drive more traffic to your Facebook page – and calls it digital engagement – they don’t get social media (quite the opposite).  This is the age of conversational marketing, of participatory marketing. When customers share positive experiences about you [...]

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Remembering Steve Jobs

by Richard Fouts  |  October 7, 2011  |  4 Comments

When I was a little kid, my dad brought home a computer. We couldn’t wait to see it work … wow, a computer in our house!  It was unimaginable.  Correction, what was unimaginable was how long it took my dad to get it up and running. Hours of technical manuals, phone calls and unreadable error [...]

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Category: Brand awareness Uncategorized     Tags:

Harry Gold’s New Cost Avoidance Term: Media Equivalent Value

by Richard Fouts  |  February 13, 2011  |  Submit a Comment

How much do you typically spend to generate a few million impressions, connections, email signups or leads?  What do you spend to generate a thousand click-thrus?  Well – put your check book away, because the CEO of Overdrive interactive, a digital marketing company, has a cost avoidance technique. Many of you already know about it [...]

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Boulder Logic, Point of Reference, References-Online, Metia: Please share the love.

by Richard Fouts  |  April 19, 2010  |  8 Comments

Automating the management of customer references is an emerging software category whose time has come.  Companies like Boulder Logic, Point of Reference, References-Online and  Metia all see how complex it can be to not only recruit customers to act as references, but to manage them as well. When customers act as references, they put their reputations [...]

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Category: Brand awareness Marketing communications Personal selling Public relations     Tags: