A number of months ago, the Vancouver coffee scene started buzzing when a local coffee giant traded insults with a customer who posted a negative comment on her coffee blog about her experience with his brew.

Unfortunately from a PR perspective, this argument went on, not behind closed doors as it may have in the past, but on the Internet in the presence of, well, everyone in the free world.

As a result, the coffee shop owner took more heat from blog readers for the verbal abuse he’d leveled at the amateur reviewer than he did for the supposed quality of his coffee (this coffee house has such a loyal following that I doubt one poor review could hurt business).

In an age where Web 2.0 technologies have broken down geographical and economic barriers, encouraging instantaneous, unidirectional communication among strangers who never meet face to face, it’s no surprise that discussions online can become heated faster than a professional espresso machine can steam milk. Nonetheless, this particular coffee shop owner can be applauded for one thing: he joined in the conversation.

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I often write website copy for entrepreneurs in the start-up phase — folks with tight budgets and DIY attitudes.

This market is interesting because usually these guys and gals are not trained marketers. Therefore, though they generally understand the need for a professional website designed to sell, they’re not always aware of the level of skill it takes to develop website copy that effectively promotes their products and services.

As a result, as their businesses morph and they quickly find themselves with professionally developed websites that no longer reflect their current venture, they frantically try to keep up on their own, re-writing some of their website copy themselves. They’ll remove a phrase here and add a sentence there, assuming it won’t make a difference.  Read more...

Recently, I wrote about what I thought were going to be the big e-business trends of the coming year, and word-of-mouth marketing (aka viral marketing) was one of them. In short, word-of-mouth marketing is a strategy that encourages individuals to pass a marketing message along informally to others in their social network.

True to prediction, over the holidays, a very creative e-card designed by Michigan-based marketing company Enlighten began making its way around North America. According to MarketingSherpa, the Holiday Excuse Generator “was so creative that it landed major media and blog attention, 50,000 mainly viral visits [to the company microsite], and gained the agency proposal requests from five new brand-name clients.”

The concept was simple: Show off the company’s skills by developing a slick, interactive, creative campaign with a purpose to drive people to pass it on by email. Read more...