Since I’m in marketing, I’m pretty wary of marketing gimmicks. I know that if something is offered for free, you have to hand something over in return (your name, your phone number, your email address, your first born child).

When I walked into the crowded Heav’nly Donuts this morning, Bill (in photo at right), from the New England Coffee Company, handed me a card for a free cup of coffee. I didn’t take it.

“What’s the catch?” I asked.

“No catch,” said Bill. “Our company loves its customers and this is how they show appreciation. Take one — no catch, honest.”

So I did and after I had my cappuccino in hand, I took Bill’s photo and said I’d put him on my blog.

Why? I like refreshingly good marketing — and coffee.

I admit it. I’m still learning how to use Facebook Pages for B2B and still feel somewhat uncomfortable doing so.

I think part of the reason is because I’m over the line that divides people who feel really comfortable posting their entire lives online and the rest of us (of a certain age) who grew up keeping our personal lives private.

Plus, part of me still thinks, “Do people *really* care to know about the music I like or which restaurants I visit?”

However! This doesn’t mean I’m not up for learning new things, especially since, as one of my clients pointed out, the Facebook “Like” button has changed the world as we know it. And it just so happened that my personal life and learning new things came together two weeks ago when I realized that the Cap’n Crunch brand had become active on Facebook.

Before social media, you would have never known that I adore Cap’n Crunch cereal and have since I was a kid. When I moved out on my own, I used to it eat for dinner. (Why? No one could tell me not to.) After I had my son, I’d eat it as a mid-morning and late afternoon snack because I needed the sugar buzz.

I like Cap’n Crunch because it stays crunchy in milk. Yes, it does cut the roof of your mouth wicked bad, but it’s still so good. And you can’t just stop at one bowl, either.

I found the Cap’n Crunch Facebook page a few months ago and “Liked” it — but at the time the brand was pretty quiet.

That all changed a few weeks ago when somebody at Quaker Oats got a clue and gave the good Cap’n a voice. All of a sudden, amusing status updates from the brand began appearing in my feed – and surprisingly, the person behind the persona actually knows what he/she is doing. I tweeted on March 18 that I was amused that Cap’n Crunch was engaging fans on Facebook via March Madness and the Cap’n, who is obviously very smart, responded:

@diannahuff Thank you! I’m back ashore after years at sea and ready to take on Facebook and Twitter! Any tips for a newcomer?

Well, Cap’n, it is you who has actually taught me a few things about how B2B brands can use Facebook more effectively.

1. Develop a back story for why you’re now active.

Previous to March 14, the brand didn’t respond to people posting on the Facebook Page. This changed when an online rumor started that the cereal was to be discontinued. You can read the backstory at the CarltonJordon.com blog. Suffice to say, a spokesperson for Quaker told Ad Age:

Reports of Cap’n Crunch’s demise are greatly exaggerated. In fact, we just launched an official Facebook page for Cap’n Crunch. Now that our Cap’n Crunch brand is in the social-media space, our adult consumers can stay up to date on all things Cap’n Crunch.

Instead of simply appearing on Facebook, the good Cap’n explained that after being years at sea he had now returned. I liked this reasoning as it allowed the Cap’n to get his bearings now that he was back on land.

2. Ask people what they want from your Page.

ExactTarget has published eight fabulous reports on what people want from your brand via social media (Facebook and Twitter). The number one thing? Discounts and coupons! So imagine my delight when I saw this March 23 Facebook post from Cap’n Crunch and the 204 comments from Fans (plus 313 Likes) — many of whom want (you guessed it) coupons, discounts and free cereal.

I love seeing ExactTarget’s research in action, a brand asking peeps what they want, and a still wobbly-legged Cap’n looking for direction. Cute! Now Quaker Oats has to follow through.

3. Have some fun!

Because Facebook is a social networking platform for people and their family and friends, it’s a really great place to show your company or brand personality and have some fun — which is how you build community and engagement. You can also run contests that might not otherwise work on your blog, Website, or e-newsletter.

Given that Quaker started its social media campaign for Cap’n Crunch about two and half weeks ago, I’m really impressed that they came up with this contest: Fans can vote for their favorite Cap’n Crunch T-shirt design.

Fans will be able to find the shirts this summer on specially marked boxes of the cereal.

Quaker Oats has done a great job letting the person behind the Cap’n Crunch persona develop a personality and interact with Fans. I also like how the brand is responding to people on Twitter. Good job, Cap’n! May you always have a fair wind at your back and smooth sailing.

Over the weekend, my automatic garage door sprung a spring — meaning I had to pull the red emergency cord to get it to close.

Because I’m a handy-with-tools kind of woman, I could see how to fix it, but given that the pulley / cable combination had broken too, figured it better to call in the pros. (Plus, my garage door, which is solid wood, is *heavy.* As buff as I am, I couldn’t lift it to the open position.)

Going online, I searched for “garage door repair Plaistow” and was presented with the Google map pack.

Read the one review for Cass Shumsky Overhead Garage Door Corporation. The customer was very happy with her garage door repair. Bingo. Called the company on Sunday afternoon and received a call back from Cass Shumsky himself Monday morning.

I told Mr. Shumsky I had found his site through Google and he said, “They say now the yellow pages no longer work, so I’ve been working hard to make sure I show up in Google.”

Even better, to get people to leave a comment on his Website, he entices them with a $5 gas card — an enticement I read about on his Twitter feed. How cool is that? (I left my own comment.)

The entire experience of dealing with Mr. Shumsky was wonderful. Eric, his repair person, showed up at my house at 12:15 and because I had a call scheduled for 1:00, he had my door working again by 12:50. I was very impressed.

Small companies like Shumsky’s call me regularly because business has dropped off and they’re scrambling. I explain about why they need to be online, but I get resistance.

Here’s why being online — with just a simple Website that’s not even optimized — worked for Mr. Shumsky:

1. Because he has a Website and has claimed his Google Places listing, his business appears in the Google map pack.

2. He encourages people to leave testimonials, ensuring future business.

3. Simple site shows what he does — fix and install garage doors.

4. Phone number is on every single page making it easy to call.

But there’s more to it than that. Mr. Shumsky succeeded with me because he treated me with courtesy and respect (I can’t tell you how many male tradespeople have treated me like I’m an idiot), he had his repairman out when he said he would, and the repair was done quickly and cost-effectively.

Yes, the Internet has changed all the rules with regard to marketing. But some of the rules haven’t changed — as seen in my experience with Mr. Shumsky. As he said to me on the phone, “My name is on my business. That means I stand behind my word.”

Thank you, Mr. Shumsky, for reinforcing this “traditional” way of doing business, and thank you for fixing my garage door. It works better than it did before it broke. And, you’ll definitely get my order when I’m ready to order a new garage door.

My lucky duck son got an iPhone 4 for his birthday and the day it arrived, a friend of our family eagerly asked if he could “FaceTime” us. (See Apple’s YouTube channel for some pretty cool video.)

After participating in the call, all I can say is “Coooool.” Real time video calling — an activity we’ve seen in futuristic movies and George Jetson cartoons — is here.

It took only a few seconds for me to grasp the marketing implications, and what I predict is that FaceTime or applications like it will totally and irrevocably change marketing.

Right now I regularly receive calls from really dumb telemarketers who work for clueless companies. These people call me pitching products and services . . . yet they have no idea who I am (something social media is supposed to solve).

I even had one telemarketer from a major company ask me, “So what exactly do you do anyway?” after pitching some kind of business product at me.

A simple two-second Internet search would have given her links to my Website, my blog, my Google, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles, and some of the articles I’ve written.

Once marketers start using video calls to reach prospects, however, things will start getting nasty.

Granted, relatively few people have an iPhone 4. However, given the rate of technological advances, video calls will be commonplace in a few years. FaceTime will migrate from iPhones to iPads and other smart mobile devices.

Say I’m reading the Wall Street Journal on my iPad over breakfast and in comes a FaceTime call from a telemarketer trying to sell me something and like most telemarketers, he has no clue who I am.

Can you imagine the amount of ill-will this company will have created with one simple call? Forget negative Tweets — let’s talk about posting actual dumb FaceTime marketing calls on YouTube, Facebook, and blogs.

As marketers, myself included, we talk about how social media will help us get to know our customers / prospects — even as they get to know us.

Although you the marketer have “joined the conversation” and work hard to not use social media to push you-focused content, lots of other companies / marketers / consultants use social media as another one-to-many broadcast medium.

Just witness the number of self-serving DMs you receive when you follow people, the self-promotional spam posts on LinkedIn Groups, and the companies that use blogs and social media to push press releases and other corporate dreck.

FaceTime and apps like it will change this scenario.

FaceTime, I predict, will force companies and organizations to really think about how they market to people and what they want to accomplish — or face extreme opposition and blowback.

This is already happening with social media as evidenced when the moderator of the Nestle Facebook page talked smack with its Fans — an event that became fodder for major online media pundents. (See Michelle Tripp’s excellent write-up about how this went down.)

What do you think? Will marketers abuse FaceTime the way they’ve abused social media, direct mail, and the telephone? Or will it force them to change their ways?

Want to watch four kids launch a start-up and market a product they’re currently developing?

Check out the Kickstarter project Diaspora (full disclosure: I’m a financial backer — to the tune of $36.). Once it’s developed, Diaspora will be an open-source alternative to Facebook.

Started by four college kids (who have yet to graduate), the new social networking site will allow you to manage your own content and privacy settings.

What I like about this project, however, is how the founders are marketing it. They have a blog and have posted a wonderful video about why they’re developing Diaspora. It’s raw, it’s unedited, and it suits their “12-hour days, coffee, pizza, and passion galore” ethos.

They also have posts available only to backers — one of which apologizes for the founders not quite understanding how the Kickstarter survey function works. (People have to fill out all the fields, even though the survey questions say you don’t.)

The responses to this post show a real marketing lesson: no matter how easy you make things, people will continue to ask lots of questions (sorta like school), so you had better be sure you have the bandwidth to answer them.

I also agree with one of the posters: the Diaspora founders need to hire someone to help them post interesting content on their progress as well as answer people’s questions versus making t-shirts available to financial backers.

And, they need to answer one really big question: Just how easy will it be to use this thing? Nodes? What is a node? Sounds complicated.

Had to take my car in for its service this morning and while paying, chatted up the service rep by telling him why I like their waiting room: It’s clean, you get free coffee and it has WiFi.

The rep said, “Oh, is the WiFi working today? We get slammed by people when the router is down — people really want it.”

My marketing antennae picked up . . . “How do you know that?” I asked.

“Surveys. We get bonuses based on 100 percent customer satisfaction rates and when our WiFi is down, people give us less than a 100 percent rating. I’m personally losing thousands of dollars in bonuses!”

As a customer and a marketer, I found this little interchange fascinating. I just assumed that people would downgrade the facility based on cleanliness or whether or not one’s vehicle was properly repaired.

By surveying people, however, this dealership learned that WiFi is also an important benefit.

So it’s surprising to me that since management knows this, they don’t move heaven and earth to ensure the router works — all the time. (When I asked if they needed an IT referral, the guy said they had an IT guy, he just hadn’t gotten around to figuring out why the router wasn’t working.)

What can you learn from this interchange?

1. Survey your customers frequently to ensure your service and/or products are up to snuff.

2. If responses reveal a problem, fix it! Nothing is worse than asking customers how you can do something better and then ignoring suggestions.

3. Don’t purposely strive for less than 100% satisfaction ratings so that you don’t have to pay bonuses. Your employees will become jaded.

Does your dealer or repair person have a waiting room? What do you like or dislike about it?

So I just walked into a United Red Carpet lounge and watched while a gentleman next me handed the customer service representative his Member card.

She took one look at it and said, “Sorry, we’re not accepting these cards.”

The gentleman said, “But US Airways said it was good after October 31.”

“Sorry, sir,” was her reply. “US Airways mailed those cards out prematurely. Next!”

The gentleman said, “You guys really need to get your act together,” and stomped out.

Can’t say I blame him.

I had a similar experience yesterday when I tried to check in online. United conveniently allowed me to upgrade my seats (how nice of them!), so I dutifully entered my credit card info — only to receive a screen that read, “Sorry. We can’t process your request for this type of upgrade.” What?

When I tried to get back in to download my boarding pass, the United system said it couldn’t “find me.” Argh!

According to Kenneth J. Weiss, who wrote the new book, Slightware: The Next Great Threat to Brands, it’s this kind of technological snafu that really ticks people off — and that ruins your brand.

It doesn’t matter that US Airways mailed their member cards prematurely.

Instead of rudely turning customers away, US Airways should work with United and other carriers who honor these cards to graciously accept them — and thank customers for their business.

And United can easily fix its online check-in snafus by hiring IT people who understand how to simplify the online check-in process.

Hint: if I were the IT/marketing person at United, I’d study the Southwest e-ticket check-in process and make United’s work the same way. Just how hard can that be? Apparently, too hard.

Just received a telemarketing call where the caller (a marketer) made the following mistakes:

1. The caller ID name didn’t match the caller’s name (nor even the gender!).

2. Caller assumed I knew who he was by announcing his name only — no company name.

3. Caller was surprised when I said I didn’t know who he was.

My friend Mac McIntosh has given me two great pieces of advice over the years: “Never believe your own press” and “Never assume everyone knows who you are.” I keep these top of mind constantly — and you should, too.

4. Caller had NO CLUE that I was a one-person company even though he had my first name, last name, and telephone number.

A two-minute Google search would have told him who I was, who I work with, and what I do for a living — all questions he asked me. I have a website, a blog, and Twitter and LinkedIn profiles where all of this info exists.

5. Caller used the word “gal.”

Listen people, I am a successful business woman. If you want to do business with me, do NOT call me “girl” or “gal.” (I can’t think of anything that irks me more than this.)

All in all, a typical telemarketing call made by a clueless marketer. “Fail!” as my son would say.

According to a July 30, 2009 post at Dental Blogs, the Pew Internet Project reported 75-80% of Internet users look for medical information online.

This data is right up there with B2B buyers and consumers who use the Internet to search / shop for products, so I wasn’t surprised by the number.

Dental Blogs went on to advise dentists about how to educate these searchers:

If you want to make sure your patients are getting the solid, accurate information they need so that they can make informed decisions about dentistry, consider expanding the education center on your dental website.

This is really great advice — and one any service professional should follow, be she a lawyer, accountant, dermatologist, or marketer.

However, the author of the post goes on to add that dentists can expand their learning center with canned content — and this is where I got my marketing knickers in a twist.

Part of this twist is due to the fact that I’ve been reading Dr. Bill & Carolyn Blatchford’s book, Blatchford’s Blueprints: The art of creating practice success. For those of you who don’t know, Dr. Blatchford is *the* coach for dentists — he helps them achieve practice profitability by focusing on developing their unique vision, leadership skills, and goals.

According to Blatchford, “Vision is a positive statement of what you see, how you believe and desire your life to become. Vision is seeing the future of what you hope to be. Personal vision is not about numbers and goals. . . . Personal vision is the bigger picture of you. It is the values and standards that cover you 24 hours a day.” (emphasis mine)

Remember, people do business with people they trust . . . and by communicating your personal vision, no matter who you are or the job you do, you attract people who instinctively resonate with your vision, whether or not they know it.

So, my question is: How do you communicate your personal vision if you’re using canned content that “dental marketing” companies are willing to sell to you — and that any number of dentists are also using?

In the last few years I’ve had the opportunity to work with three dentists: Dr. Helaine Smith, Dr. Steven St. Germain, and currently, Dr. Anne B. Filler. All three have had me write copy for their websites (Dr. Filler’s new site is still under construction).

What has struck me with each dentist is that while each one provides essentially the same type of service — exceptional dental care — each of these dentists is guided, and indeed driven, by their own personal passion and vision (which I hope comes through clearly on their respective sites).

Dr. St. Germain, for example, believes in educating patients about their dental options and providing the “gold standard” in dental care. In addition, he’s pretty passionate about helping others and regularly volunteers his time on mission trips.

Dr. Filler also believes in educating patients as well as helping them maintain healthy mouths for a lifetime. What I love about Dr. Filler is that she’s very active in her local community: she sponsors youth sports teams, donates her dental services to various community organizations, and hosts high school interns, via the New Hampshire Partners in Education, who are thinking of entering the dental field.

Dr. Smith is passionate about educating consumers about the connection between one’s oral health and one’s physical health as well as helping people transform their lives. She provides her patients an unsurpassed level of care (she once told Yankee Dental workshop attendees that she will visualize a cosmetic procedure from beginning to end before she begins any work). Like Dr. St. Germain, Dr. Smith gives freely of her time and has been on over a dozen missions to third world countries where she provides dental care to children.

Because each dentist took the time to actually develop a website based on their unique values, passion and vision, they come across as authentic, caring providers — something you’re just not going to get with canned content.

Bottom line: If you’re a dentist (or any type of service professional) and you want to create a website that basically says nothing and sounds like all the other dental websites out there, use canned content. (It’s also a whole lot cheaper than hiring someone to write it for you.)

However, if you’re passionate about what you do and want to stand apart from your local competitors, consider hiring a copywriter who can help you craft your unique message that will actually get people in your office door.

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Does canned content have its place? Or should companies strive to create unique content throughout a website?

Ambassador of Buzz for Grasshopper, Jonathan Kay, emailed me yesterday (July 27) to update me about the chocolate grasshopper campaign the company conducted in May 2009.

I’m really glad he did this because this campaign was a topic of discussion at our dinner table. My husband is in marketing/sales, too, and we spent a good half hour talking about how much each piece cost, including shipping by FedEx.

According to Jonathan, the campaign’s objective was simply to generate buzz and “spark a grassroots movement among the entrepreneurial community that would raise awareness of the brand, and get people interested in entrepreneurship” — not to get people to sign up for the company’s  Advanced Number service, which is something I originally posted about when I received my packet of grasshoppers.

Hence, the  campaign consisted of mailing out the chocolate grasshoppers and creating a video about “the power of entrepreneurship.”

The Grasshopper team spent months scouring the Internet looking for 5,000 of the most influential people with “buzz” around them — emphasis on “influential,” not entrepreneurs who might need the Advanced Number service.

Based on this simple objective, the campaign was a real success. You can read the full Chocolate Grasshopper case study for all of the numbers, but suffice to say, the campaign is a great example of how social media can drive awareness — and cost much, much less than one 30-second TV commercial:

Total campaign cost: $68,103

183,000+ page views for the Entrepreneurs Can Change the World video

51,700+ page views of Grasshoppers.com/idea

2,959 referrals from Twitter

1,664 referrals from Facebook

170 blog posts (according to Jonathan, I was one of the first people to post about the campaign)

Do note that the referrals from Twitter are higher than those from Facebook — Facebook may have more members, but Twitter, it appears, has greater reach.

One other thing to note — which the case study doesn’t cover: This is the second time (for me) that a company has followed up with me after I’ve written about them on this blog. (The first instance was when Brian Ellefritz, Cisco’s Director of Social Media Marketing, contacted me after I featured one of the company’s campaign videos.)

Follow-up with influential bloggers should be, if isn’t already, a social media best practice because you create good will, develop relationships, and increase the possibility for follow-up blog mentions.

Not only did I write an additional blog post about Cisco after talking one-on-one with Brian, but I’ve also have continued to use Cisco as a “what to do right” case study in presentations.

The same will now hold true for Grasshopper. You simply cannot buy that type of brand awareness — and it’s why social media is so effective. (And it’s also why companies must, must, must monitor what’s being said about them online because social media also drives negative awareness in the same huge way.)

One final note: because I was targeted as an “influential” (I’m truly honored!) and because I do consider myself an entrepreneur with vision, let me share my vision with you. It’s what drives me to get out of bed every morning:

I want to be a hands-on mom and give my son a great childhood while also helping my clients achieve their business objectives with results-oriented marketing communications consulting and copywriting.

What’s your vision?