Will Marlow - Filed under 'PR'

Let Yourself Be Found (Flip the Switch)

Proctor & Gamble, currently the world’s 8th largest corporation and over 170 years old, was the first company to put a toll-free 1-800 number on all of its product packaging. The first year after doing so, it received 200,000 phone calls from customers offering ideas or complaints. P&G, with revenues of almost $80 billion in 2009, spends hundreds of millions of marketing dollars aimed at identifying and locating customers. But all it needed to do was flip a switch and suddenly 200,000 customers reversed the process and started finding P&G.

Nonprofits, schools, and companies are beginning to think of social media the same way. Just turn on the channel (with a blog, a Facebook profile, Twitter, YouTube, or a specialty service like AlumFi), and let your donors, volunteers, and customers find you. Take their messages seriously. Respond to them over the same social network with which they contacted you. You’ll have richer communications, better relationships with your base, and a better year overall than you would otherwise have had.

Will Marlow is the co-creator of AlumniFidelity, where he helps schools such as the University of Virginia, William & Mary, the University of Oklahoma, and Bowling Green State University, as well as about 25 other schools and nonprofits, with online fundraising and marketing campaigns. Email him at will@alumnifidelity.com.

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Filed under // blogging Blogs e-Commerce Facebook Fundraising Marketing PR Social Media Twitter

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How To Be Outstanding, Or What Happened When My Car Was Towed Last Night

Last night my car was towed from a restaurant's parking lot while I was eating dinner inside. The owner of the restaurant stopped preparing sushi to personally drive me and my party to the towing lot to retrieve the car. The owner could have handled this problem in any number of acceptable ways, and most of those acceptable ways would have resulted in me repeatedly telling a story to my friends about how my car was towed while I ate dinner at his restaurant, and how inconvenient it was. Now, I will instead tell the story about how he personally drove me across town to retrieve my car after it was towed.

It is NOT difficult to be outstanding. With apologies to my hero Dee Hock, you just need to think about all of the things that people have done for you over the years that you have loved and remembered, and do those things for others, always. If you do this, you'll leave a lasting impression on the people you meet.

Will Marlow is the co-creator of AlumniFidelity, which helps schools and nonprofits improve their online fundraising results. Email him at will@alumnifidelity.com.

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Filed under // Arlington Best of WM Dee Hock Good PR Hunan Number One PR Public Relations Virginia