Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

Web Strategy of the Future

A company or brand Web strategy should include considerations for how people will search, share, and involve through the content. In addition to integrating a corporate site with social outposts, it should also be integrated withing itself by layering: community building with editorial impact, and marketing. 1/3 editorial impact - using what the Poetae Novae called labor limae, make the content efficient while still effective; put usefulness front and center without overwhelming, and take the point of view of the customer, what they think, want (or worry) about. Content that educates, entertains, and empowers 1/3 community building - working on... Read more →

Changes to the Way Customers Buy

Where did you get that? Is a familiar question for me. The other day I was walking to my car when the woman in the couple across the street pointed at me and said "I want a coat just like that one". I know exactly where I bought it in Modena. In the now rare instances when I am at a store, people often ask for my advice -- does this look good on me? What do you think, should I go for the other one? Yeah, there's a couple of apps for that, too. Due in part to my... Read more →

Three Connective Ways to Use an Out of Office Responder

This post was inspired by a Google+ thread I started a couple of days ago. In it, I asked: Out of office or "I'm too busy to answer" email forms - what's your take on them? I don't use them. After two strikes with someone I'm done (because, frankly, we're all busy). Curious as to your approach. That question felt a bit like a cop out, though. Because there are times when I've had to use an auto-responder. For example, when I knew my company slow VPN would be too slow and not work from a specific place I was... Read more →

Digital Intent, Behavioral Targeting, and Relationships

Intent is the new black. I was at a dinner in New York City hosted by Human 1.0 the other night. We were there to learn about Big Data and a big part of the conversation around the table shifted to talking about intent. While social technology has given us effective ways to express our “likes”, often of things we know and have done, it has yet to address the other side of the interest graph -- the things we discover either trough trusted recommendations and reviews or on our own. These are the wants -- items we want to... Read more →

What Keeps You up at Night?

I'm a night owl. Often people will hear back from me in the wee hours because I get creative at around 4pm and then stay in flow for hours after that. By the time I realize I'm cold from the heating going to low for the night, it's way past bed time. When I get into flow, I shut everything else down and experience deep concentration, from which I draw creativity and a sense of well being. I was thinking about that experience at lunch, as I was listening again to this TED Talk by Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi, the man with... Read more →

Keep the Faith. Demand Proof. Relentlessly.

There are two aspects to doing business -- believing in what you're doing, and verifying that it works for your customers and clients. To succeed, you need to do both, relentlessly. When it's only about keeping the faith, you may be worshiping at the altar of hope (or its shady cousin, ego), and you can't trade that credibly. Test your idea before you go down the heavy investment route. Is there a market for it? Base your trade on demanding proof alone, and you take away the specialness of drawing from a deeper source of inspiration and passion. The specialness... Read more →

How to Win Customers and Influence Word of Mouth

When I met Stan Phelps for coffee a little over a year ago, I learned for the first time there was a term -- lagniappe -- that meant a small gift given to a customers by a merchant at the time of purchase. It cannot be faked of forced, for it to work it must feel real. Our conversation on the research work he was doing for his first book, What's Your Purple Goldfish? (Amazon affiliate link), reminded me of the local toy store growing up. The owner always had a little something set aside for us. Can you imagine?... Read more →

The Truth About B2B Social Media Adoption

While we've been sharing examples of creative content strategy executions for a couple of years here, it's easy to forget that the rest of the business world may still be wrestling with different issues. The truth about social media adoption, according to the results of a survey conducted by Penton Marketing Services* is that many B2B (business to business) marketers are frustrated and less than satisfied with the performance of their website, social, search marketing and sales conversion efforts. This is especially true in small and mid-sized companies where marketing professional might wear multiple hats—sometimes even a sales hat—and might... Read more →

How Much is a Lifetime Customer Worth to your Business?

For Zane's Cycles, it’s $12,500, says CEO Chris Zane in Reinventing the Wheel. That means if we start by providing a child his first bike at 4-years-old and continue through the retirement bike, we will collect $12,500 in fulfilling all of the cyclist’s lifetime needs. But to actually sell an individual that many bikes to hit the goal of $12,500, we must win their business for life. We must develop a trusting relationship with the customer from the first encounter and provide them with such an incredible experience, extraordinary service, and attention to detail that they come back time and... Read more →

Top Five Conversation Agent Stories this Month

Each month we'll take a lok at the most popular and interesting posts of the past thirty days. Here is the current selection to give you something to think about and share over the weekend. The Louis C.K. Self-Publishing Meme + Is This a Good Time for Listening? + Does Sharing Mean Endorsing? + Is "Write a Book" on Your Bucket List? + Finding Creative New Ways to Go to the Movies + Plus, the secret link to a page where you can find the summary of all business and technology trends. Read more →