Web Workers Daily
The 10 Best Books for Web Workers 2007
Dec. 12, 2007
Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing by Lois Kelly. Gone are the days when marketing could be left to everyone else. As a web worker — whether cubicle-based employee or cafe-going freelancer — you need to know how to market yourself and any services and products you offer. Marketing consultant Kelly’s book is an easy read and a great starting point for the way marketing is changing in the web age. Read more...
The Globe & Mail
Report on Business
Nov. 7, 2007
Whatever the pitch,aim for the emotionsThere are nine types of stories that arouse people's interest, according to Beyond Buzz author and consultant Lois Kelly. Read more...
The Miami Herald book review
Honesty is a crucial marketing tool
Sept. 10, 2007
Lois Kelly has delivered a prodigious and worthy successor to that book (Cluetrain Manifesto) by looking at the ways human communicate with each other and how conversational aspects, hooks and themes can be used for marketing. She brings the proverbial cluetrain into the station and unpacks some of the freight. Read more...
Guy Kawasaki: How to Change the World
The Nine Best Story Lines for Marketing
July 5, 2007
Lois Kelly is the author of Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing. This is her explanation of the top nine types of stories that people like to talk about. If you’re pitching your company to investors, customers, partners, journalists, vendors, or employees and you don’t use at least one of these story lines, you probably have a problem. And most likely you’re too close to what you’re doing, so you think that you’re uniquely “patent-pending, curve-jumping, and revolutionary.” :-) Read more...
Meaningful Marketing
How to Get Prospects to Say, “That’s Interesting, Tell Me More.”
June 16, 2007 by Marcia Hoeck
I just finished a terrific book that I’m pretty excited about. The author, Lois Kelly, how to help companies have meaningful, interesting discussions about their companies with their customers. She calls it conversational marketing. And she really nails it.
has been able to put into words and practice something I’ve been trying to get a fix on for quite awhile —Go get Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word of Mouth Marketing, by Lois Kelly. Study it, highlight it, underline it, tag the pages, and implement the practices. As with many great marketing concepts, the idea behind conversational marketing is so simple it’s brilliant... read more
Marketing Sherpa
Enter to Win: 'Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing'
June 11, 2007"Enough with the marketing blah blah blah — let's talk about something interesting." And so begins Lois Kelly's new book,'Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing.'...The chapters on establishing a unique point of view are especially crucial in learning how to capture customers' interest and imagination. Kelly suggests nine fundamental themes to consider in conversation topics; these include personal stories and cutting-edge trends. Best of all, she incorporated... read more
CRM Magazine
Required Reading: Moving Beyond the Buzz
Friday, June 01, 2007 by Colin BeastyIn a consumer-driven world where social networking, MySpace, blogs, and podcasting rule, prepackaged and mass-targeted campaigns are dead; word of mouth is king. While many companies believe that expensive campaigns and elaborate slogans will do the trick, what they really need is to learn to listen to their customers and rethink their marketing strategies. In Beyond Buzz, author Lois Kelly provides tools and guidance and offers hands-on advice on how to listen to customers, identify what's important to them, and craft a marketing message that will resonate as a result. CRM's Colin Beasty spoke with Kelly about the book.
CRM magazine: We now live in a consumer-dominated environment. How has that influenced marketing over the past few years?
Kelly: One of the big trends, and this might sound trivial, is people want to connect with people. Consumers have come to reject the starched, corporate, all-about-us, prepackaged marketing message; they simply don't believe companies anymore. They want to connect with people, so they're listening...read more
Getting to the Point: Katya’s non-profit marketing blog
Don’t speak doglish
Posted by katya on Mon, May 21, 2007
I’m really enjoying Lois Kelly’s book, Beyond Buzz, which she mailed me after I blogged about the executive summary.
In a written Q&A that was packaged with the book, she says this. Read it, substituting in your mind the words “nonprofit” for “company” and “donor” for “customer.”
Avoid DOGLISH at all costs. What I mean is that companies speak their own language of what they think is transformational, innovative, or revolutionary to customers. Yet customers speak an entirely different language and don’t have a clue what companies are talking about. (Or they know and don’t care.) Sort of like when we ramble on and on to our dogs, and they look at us with this puzzled look wanting us to just say, “sit,” and “treat.” Talk about what customers want to know. Avoid the buzz words and self-congratulatory adjectives.
Providence Business News
Learning the art of promotional ‘conversation’
May 7, 2007 By Natalie Myers, PBN Staff WriterTo illustrate a new form of marketing that Lois Kelly calls “conversational marketing,” she showed a Kleenex commercial.
The commercial pictured a woman sitting across from a man in a park. She was talking about how Hurricane Katrina has impacted her life. Her words moved her to tears, so the man offered her a tissue. And the only signal of the Kleenex brand was one flash screen at the end.
The commercial successfully illustrates conversational marketing not because it shows a conversation between two people, but because it releases a point of view that is relevant to the consumer, Kelly said. It shows that the marketers at Kleenex are listening to their consumers and what affects them. And it gives consumers something to talk about.
Business Innovation Factory blog
Is Your Company Talk-Worthy?
May 2, 2007 by Chris FlanaganHow many times have you enjoyed a one-way conversation? For years, companies have defined themselves by what they produce only to establish one-way conversations with fickle customers ready to jump ship when the next thing comes along. As companies today reorient themselves toward customer needs, new marketing approaches are taking shape.
Yesterday, at the Providence Business Expo, Lois Kelly, founder of communications firm Foghound and author of Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing, showed us how to turn one-way conventional marketing into two-way conversational marketing.
It's the missing ingredient to what's been written about word-of-mouth marketing: how to create and be part of customer conversations. With plenty of real-world examples, Lois showed us why conversations—both digital and face-to-face—supersede brochures, press releases, sales presentations and other one-way approaches. At the end of the session, it became abundantly clear to all of us that. Read more
Word of Mouth Communications Study
April 2, 2007 by Walter Carl
What's all the buzz about? According to Lois Kelly, this isn't the most important question to ask.
Lois has written a new book called Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing. In her book she writes that companies need to focus more on making meaning with their customers (or other stakeholders) than in generating buzz.
"Making meaning" can sound awfully abstract but she provides a practical, how-to guide for marketing professionals so they can figure out the best way to navigate this new world of conversational marketing... read more
