The difference between winners and losers is simple. Products developed with senior management out in front of customers early and often – win. Products handed off to a sales and marketing organization that has only been tangentially involved in the new Product Development process lose. It’s that simple.

…from a business perspective, account limits like Basecamp has for the number of active projects can be a double-edged sword. On one hand it’s an opportunity to upgrade customers and have them pay you more money each month. On the other hand, it forces customers to revise their position, and if you’re not doing a really great job, it can prompt them to question the value of an account they may have otherwise carried on using for years.

(via Moving from Basecamp to ActiveCollab — All in the head)

Oskar’s didn’t just bring in its own selection of hand-crafted brews, though; the tap line includes draughts from competitors, such as Left Hand and New Belgium. “We’re all about promoting great beer in general,” Gray said. “Introducing craft beer to the consumer is so important to us. When someone orders a Coors Light, we serve it with a 3-ounce sample of Mama’s Little Yella Pils.”

(via 43 beers and a Cajun Creole menu | Boulder County Business Report)

“Originally, we weren’t exactly sure how to market the Touch. Was it an iPhone without the phone? Was it a pocket computer? What happened was, what customers told us was, they started to see it as a game machine,” he said. “We started to market it that way, and it just took off. And now what we really see is it’s the lowest-cost way to the App Store, and that’s the big draw. So what we were focused on is just reducing the price to $199. We don’t need to add new stuff. We need to get the price down where everyone can afford it.”

(via NY Times)

One communication aspect I feel the need to visit is how users of a service prefer to stay informed about developments and news. Specifically, I’m talking about new features and updates.

While there are many options, the main ones come down to the following:

• Email
• Blog – visit directly
• Blog – subscribe to RSS feeds
• Twitter
• View notifications when logging in to the site
• Facebook

Personally, I subscribe to the RSS feed of services I use and keep them all in a folder in NetNewsWire called “Products I Use” and then check them occasionally. Alternatively, I’ll sign up for email notifications.

How do you prefer to stay up to date with web services you use?

Priceline.com wants me to fill out a survey for a recent car rental I made through their site. Simple and innocent enough at first glance.

What really bothers me with this email is their reason why I should fill out the survey.

Usually, I hesitate to fill out any survey unless I have had a bad experience. If I’ve had a positive or neutral experience, I usually ignore these unless there is some offer, reward, or benefit for me (i.e. improved customer service in the future).

Priceline.com, on the other hand, says I’ll get “good karma” for filling out their survey. This is a ridiculous marketing message. I’ll give you, a for-profit business, more information to improve and generate more revenue. In return, I get “karma”. Are you kidding me?

Don’t insult me. If they had left this wording off, I might have actually clicked on that brief survey and provided some information. After reading that statement, I was turned off by the approach.

The sad part is that I actually had a great experience renting a car through Priceline and would definitely recommend them to anyone looking to save some money on a car rental.

I know many will read the email and wonder why I’m making an issue of this. It’s simple actually. Effective marketing is about providing benefit to the consumer and not the other way around. I don’t care about the business, I care about myself. Businesses need to remember to use this to their advantage.

There are numerous ways of doing this in Priceline’s case. Lower costs, more options going forward, better shopping experience, or improved customer service would all be relevant to their customers.

As a consumer why should I care whether I’m helping this business?

A more effective approach would have been to distill to a sentence or two why filling out this survey would benefit me and not the business.

I’ve praised Twitter many times already, but we’re starting to see more companies use the service effectively for marketing and customer support.

Silicon Alley Insider posts a list of the top corporate Twitters worth following. At the top of their list are @comcastcares, @zappos, @jetblue, and @southwestair

While many bloggers have praised Comcast for its use of Twitter, I would just add that some caution is needed (especially in the case of Comcast).

It’s very easy to use a service like Summize to track mentions of your brand. But sending a Tweet about an issue or trying to help is only part of the solution.

Providing fast and actually useful customer support is extremely important. But just as with viral marketing, it is even more important to have a quality product or service behind that support.

Companies must start with the service itself and not just the customer support. The best support in the world will not change a crappy product (yes, Comcast you are the poster child for this).

It’s good to see companies moving in this direction and using emerging Internet services like Twitter for marketing. I just hope they keep focus on actually providing something consumers will want to purchase in the first place.

Pat Matthews writes about changing the name of Webmail.us to Mailtrust:

“The first challenge in the naming process was coming to the realization that we needed to change our name. Even though we knew our name was flawed, we spent a lot of time, money, and energy building our brand over the years. And all things considered, I think we did a pretty good job. We’re no Nike or Yahoo!, but in our industry, people know who we are. Starting from scratch seemed like a daunting move. But then one of my business mentors said something I will never forget. He said, ‘Pat, it’s never too late to change a bad name.’ He’s right. As soon as I heard him say that, I never looked back.”

Great advice. I’ve been through the name change process (both companies as well as products) several times across a few different companies. This is always a challenging process, but it appears Pat and company have nailed it. I love the change to Mailtrust as it much better indicates what the company is all about.

Realtors are trained that this farming is a good sales practice. Send out something to every potential prospect on your list and keep multiple touch points. While I question the actual returns of this tactic, it really only works if there is at least a neutral opinion of the salesperson.

The problem is that this realtor was not helpful during the sales process. Additionally, she was not pleasant (I actually thought her to be mean) and generally gave me a very negative impression.

So no matter how many calendars she sends me, I’m never going to do business with her. In fact, any time I’m referring someone to a realtor I make sure I mention her name as someone to stay away from.

For no cost at the time of our interaction, she could have turned me into a potential customer simply by her actions and how she handled herself. Sending me a useless calendar is not going to win my business when all I wanted was some respect.

Here’s my free advice to Circuit City – copy Best Buy. Yes, it’s quite simple advice. Just hang out at your local Best Buy (Circuit City management you may have noticed they’re everywhere now) and start taking notes.

The last time I ventured into a Circuit City store I felt the atmosphere to be dark and depressing. Additionally, the sales people pounced on you as soon as you neared their section.

Contrast this to Best Buy – bright with good lighting, well thought-out store layout, friendly and non-pushy sales people. Where I was once loathe to talk to a Circuit City employee, I happily seek out Best Buy workers and pester them with questions and opinions.

The lesson? Place a high priority on the customer experience. Returning customers are always a good starting point.