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November 27, 2005
Customer evangelism in U.S. News & World Report
In this week's U.S. News & World Report, reporter James Pethokoukis documents the difference between customer evangelism and corporate evangelism in "Spreading the Word: Corporate evangelists recruit customers who love to create buzz about a product."
(Disclosure: Jackie and I are part of the story, for which Pethokoukis also interviewed corporate evangelists at Sun and TechSmith as well as the volunteer customer evangelists who blog about McDonald's and Vespa.)
Sun's chief evangelist Simon Phipps succinctly explains why he would fly from the Netherlands to Chicago to speak to a few dozen conference attendees about Sun's corporate philosophy: "These are people who work on software that powers huge websites that millions of people around the world depend on. There may not be many people in the room, but the effect they have on society is huge."
As Phipps aptly demonstrates, connecting with core customers, whether it's via a chief evangelist, product director or customer service manager, is a mission. Customer connection, coupled with a great product/service, is the silver bullet to generating word of mouth that sustains growth.
What's also apt is the dry-ice comment Pethokoukis extracts from McDonald's about the popular fan blog McChronicles.
McDonald's spokesperson Anna Rozenich wouldn't comment on McChronicles but she called blogs a "valuable communications tool," adding that "we appreciate that customers who related to our brand are sharing their thoughts about McDonald's with others."
How hard would it have been for the spokesperson to have said, "We love McChronicles! He does a great job of validating the stuff that works, and what we need to work on. We couldn't be more excited that he's a true McDonald's fan."
Have some soul. Tell reporters that your evangelists are the greatest customers in the world (and that you've restructured the public relations department). After all, what true evangelists crave more than anything is recognition.
Update: Pethokoukis has some additional Q&A with us on the U.S. News website this week.
Update: Jim Grisanzio of Sun takes issue with my quote in the article that "PR spinmeisters (at big companies) should be forbidden from being involved" in blogs and podcasts.
He writes: "So, just kick the guy and run, right? How brave. (He's) advocating that companies start blogs to open up yet ... simultaneously suggests that an entire group of people be excluded."
My intention with that quote was to call out the PR "spinmesiters" who distort reality to fit a corporate agenda or remove most indications of human conversation by making a company sound like it's staffed by zombies. (There's far too many marketing spinmeisters, too, and we're not shy about calling them out on this blog.)
My intention was *not* to put a giant bucket on the heads of all PR people -- just the ones who believe in "spin" rather than "inform."
Other blogs that reference Customer evangelism in U.S. News & World Report:
» Who Controls Your Brand's Message? from Diva Marketing (Blog)
A few years ago - or perhaps only a few months ago - many successful executives achieved corner office status through controlling both internal and external information. Of course there was help from an advertising and/or PR agency that crafted the cle... [Read More]
» Recruiting Evangelists from Matt on Marketing
A good corporate evangelist doesn't just sell a dream. He or she also is responsible for recruiting and creating additional company and product evangelists, who in turn believe in and sell the dream. If done right, this leads to significant grass-roo... [Read More]
the site is at blogSPOT.com, not blogPOST.com
Thanks for the correction, Peter. I updated the link.
wonderful site.
