Monday, June 04, 2007

ROI: Return on Involvement

After leaving the first post in my Company Blog Checkup series on Kodak last week, I received the following email from Tom Hoehn, the Director of Marketing and Customer Experience/kodak.com, and one of the writers for their blog 1000 Words:
Mack, Thanks for your most excellent post about our blogs at Kodak. We'll have to watch that huge "no-no." We do want the conversation to flow and try to balance that aspect of things when responding to comments. Your observations are duly noted and we'll take a look at that flow. I assure you we do pay attention to every single comment. We have found the experience rewarding and have risen to the challenge of publishing every business day on 1,000 Words since it went live on September 6, 2006. An active blog is a healthy blog! Take care and thanks for checking us out and then some!
tom hoehn -- one of the Kodak
blog contributors. My posts on the Kodak blog: http://tomhoehn.1000words.kodak.com/


Tom tried to leave the above as a comment to that post, but it didn't go through. And I told him I wanted to go ahead and post it here, because I felt it deserved its own post. It reflects well on Tom and his brand that he is aware of, and responding to what is being said online about Kodak and its blogs.

As a result of Tom's taking the time to address my post, I'm now far more likely to keep up with his blog, to blog about Kodak promotions, and maybe even buy Kodak products (or at least consider them). The real question is, how much money would Kodak need to spend on 'traditional' marketing to get me to the point that one email did?

Taking the time to listen and respond really does pay for itself.


Tags:,

Email Me

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mack,

I agree! Blogging is about sharing, listening and conversing. Like you, I am far more likely to read blogs where those things occur.

 Ryan Karpeles said...

Kudos to Tom! Great example of the power of TWO-way communication. If only more companies would take after Kodak...

Thanks for sharing this, Mack.

Anonymous said...

"Return on Involvement." I love it!

Anonymous said...

Jordan took the words right out of my mouth... I love the new definition of ROI.

Anonymous said...

"I'm now far more likely to keep up with his blog, to blog about Kodak promotions, and maybe even buy Kodak products (or at least consider them)."

Is Nikon listening? We've been blogging about them for over a month but they've not responded (only their agency MWW, whom I very much appreciate for chiming-in). So powerful when the companies behind these promotions get involved. Kudos to Kodak. And cheers to the day when we don't applaud companies for getting involved with their customers...because it's just common courtesy to do so. Like I tell all my clients, if someone gives you their time, it's best to give them some of yours.

Great to see Kodak leading that charge--and smart of them to take your sage advice which you so generously gave.

Btw, love "ROInvolvement"...you should trademark that, it's brilliant Mack ;-).

Nudge Marketing said...

After reading that I just got a warm fuzzy feeling about Kodak :)

It takes SOOO little time and effort for a company to do this, but as everyone who runs a blog knows getting a response from someone higher on the food chain is such a good feeling! More companies should dedicate people to do this type of responding..

Anonymous said...

Also love the ROI phrase. Nice!

But what's TOTALLY awesome is that you are actively supporting Kodak with feedback AND they appear to be listening. Crazy! What is becoming of our world???!!! ;)

gianandrea said...

Mack, they definitely work more than 4 hours a week and in a smarter way.