When customers are truly thrilled about their experience with a product or service, they have the potential to become one of its influential evangelists. Savvy marketing professionals know that this group of true believers can be leveraged as a potent force to build word of mouth that leads to new customers. Creating Customer Evangelists explains how to develop marketing and sales strategies that create communities of passionate customers. By cultivating a dialogue and then creating emotion-driven relationships with customers, companies can inspire grassroots support. Creating Customer Evangelists shows how to convert good customers into exceptional ones who willingly spread the word. "Lessons of customer evangelism related through real life company stories make this book an absorbing read." -- Harvard Business School "I'll admit it: at first, I was a skeptic. But halfway through this savvy and compelling book, I became a convert. And by the time I'd turned the last page, I'd become an evangelist. Say it with me, brothers and sisters: customer evangelism is the future!" -- Dan Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind "An inspiring and thorough book packed with real life examples, action items and insight." -- Emanuel Rosen, author of The Anatomy of Buzz Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell, authors of Citizen Marketers, popularized the term "customer evangelism." The Seth Godin-edited New York Times bestseller The Big Moo featured them among 33 of "the world's smartest business thinkers."

In Evangelist Marketing, Alex Goldfayn argues that technology companies succeed in spite of their marketing, not because of it. He says that if consumer tech makers ceased all marketing activity today, they would not see a significant decline in sales. In this book, Alex presents why the current state of overly-technical, features-oriented tech marketing, branding, communications and public relations is costing the industry billions of dollars—easy money that's voluntarily being left on the table. Then he lays out a step-by-step system for creating intensely loyal brand evangelists based on deep consumer insights and simple, emotional language. Evangelist Marketing is written for consumer tech companies big and small—from PC manufacturers to Web-based services. It's also sure to improve the work of their marketing and public relations agencies.

In today’s competitive business climate, you can’t just satisfy your customers. You have to be better than that, giving them experiences that they won’t forget. Author Shep Hyken has spent thirty years studying great companies and the evangelists they create. In The Cult of the Customer, Hyken shows how to design a strategy that leads both customers and employees through five distinct cultural phases – from "uncertainty" to "amazement." By presenting dozens of case studies that show how great companies made this journey, Hyken identifies the critical internal and external changes that allowed them to build a Cult of the Customer – and shows how you can do it too. Hyken’s message is both powerful and timely: the happier your customers and employees are, the more successful your company will be. The Cult of the Customer is your guide to creating a customer-focused culture that turns satisfied customers into customer evangelists.

The woman next to you in the coffee shop, typing madly on her laptop, just might be determining the ending to next year's block-buster film or how quickly the hottest new PDA hits store shelves. In homes, dorm rooms, waiting rooms, planes and trains around the world, millions of people are exercising enormous influence on what we buy, even though they have no official connection to those products and services. Who are they? What motivates them? Marketing experts Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell explore the ramifications of social media in Citizen Marketers. As everyday people increasingly create content on behalf of companies, brands or products, they are collaborating with others just like themselves and forming ever-growing communities of enthusiasts and evangelists. From the rough to the sophisticated, the "user-generated media" of blogs, online bulletin boards, podcasts, photos, songs, and animations are influencing companies' customer relationships, product design, and marketing campaigns, whether they participate willingly or not.

Guy Kawasaki's phenomenal success at Apple Computer and as a start-up entrepreneur was the result of an innovative approach to sales, marketing, and management called evangelism. Evangelism means convincing people to believe in your product or ideas as much as you do, by using fervor, zeal, guts, and cunning to mobilize your customers and staff into becoming as passionate about a cause as you are. Selling the Dream is a handbook and workbook for putting evangelism into action. Kawasaki charts a complete blueprint for the beginning evangelist that covers such topics as how to define a cause (whether it is a business, like Windham Hill Records or the Body Shop, or a public interest concern, like the National Audubon Society or Mothers Against Drunk Driving), how to identify good and bad enemies, how to deliver an effective presentation, and how to find, train, and recruit new evangelists. One of the highlights of the book is a short course in developing an evangelistic business plan, illustrated by the complete, original Macintosh Product Introduction Plan. Selling the Dream will teach you how to become a raging, inexorable thunder lizard of an evangelist -- a leader whose words will never fall on deaf ears again.

The era of mass marketing is ending—replaced by the power of customer evangelists unleashed through a systematic approach to word-of-mouth called PyroMarketing. Learn how the system that sparked a revolution in the Christian marketplace can fuel the success of your business. Word-of-mouth is the biggest influence on consumer purchases and its influence is growing. How do you tap its power? The key is not some new technology or advertising fad. The best way to understand the marketing process, the way messages are sent, received, acted upon, and spread, is to think of fire. PyroMarketing simplifies word-of-mouth to a four-step system that optimizes your advertising dollars by targeting the right customers and then converting them into unpaid sales and marketing evangelists. Tapping the latest research into the brain and human behavior, Greg Stielstra demonstrates how traditional marketing techniques are expensive, obsolete, and doomed to failure—while PyroMarketing principles deliver powerful results over the long-term and for less money. Illustrated with case studies including The Purpose-Driven Life, one of the bestselling books of all time, and the breakaway phenomenon The Passion of the Christ, PyroMarketing is a comprehensive strategy that can help any business reach and retain new markets.

"Marketing expert Jackie Huba explores Gaga's biography and fan philosophy and isolates the seven lessons any business can learn from her ... And while not all businesses want to stand out the way she does, any business can win big by creating monster loyalty"--Amazon.com.

What is the amazement revolution? It is the culture that can drive any organisation -- from one employee to tens of thousands -- to focus completely on delivering an amazing customer-service experience. In this sequel to the Wall Street Journal best-selling book "The Cult of the Customer", Shep Hyken shares seven powerful strategies that any organisation can implement to create greater customer and employee loyalty. In a tough, competitive, and price-sensitive economy, customer service is one of the most essential tools to separate your business from the competition. These strategies work, as evidenced by the more than seventy case studies and examples that Hyken shares throughout the book. These examples provide dozens of lessons that can and should be implemented immediately. Corporate and industry clients from all over the world have tapped into the expertise of Shep Hyken. His client list is a who's who in the business world. As an author and speaker, Hyken is known for his simple and direct strategies that help his clients build successful, customer-focused organisations.

Business Models for Transforming Customer Relationships What if there were a way to turn occasional, sporadic transactions with customers into long-term, continuous relationships--while simultaneously driving dramatic improvements in operational efficiency? What if you could break your existing trade-offs between superior customer experience and low cost? This is the promise of a connected strategy. New forms of connectivity--involving frequent, low-friction, customized interactions--mean that companies can now anticipate customer needs as they arise, or even before. Simultaneously, enabled by these technologies, companies can create new business models that deliver more value to customers. Connected strategies are win-win: Customers get a dramatically improved experience, while companies boost operational efficiency. In this book, strategy and operations experts Nicolaj Siggelkow and Christian Terwiesch reveal the emergence of connected strategies as a new source of competitive advantage. With in-depth examples from companies operating in industries such as healthcare, financial services, mobility, retail, entertainment, nonprofit, and education, Connected Strategy identifies the four pathways--respond-to-desire, curated offering, coach behavior, and automatic execution--for turning episodic interactions into continuous relationships. The authors show how each pathway creates a competitive advantage, then guide you through the critical decisions for creating and implementing your own connected strategies. Whether you're trying to revitalize strategy in an established company or disrupt an industry as a startup, this book will help you: Reshape your connections with your customers Find new ways to connect with existing suppliers while also activating new sources of capacity Create the right revenue model Make the best technology choices to support your strategy Integrating rich examples, how-to advice, and practical tools in the form of "workshop chapters" throughout, this book is the ultimate resource for creating competitive advantage through connected relationships with your customers and redefined connections in your industry.

Noted author and teacher John Bowen takes a unique look at what it means to witness to one's faith. Evangelism is something that all Christians can do as a "normal" part of being a follower of Jesus. Witty, wise, and biblically grounded, the book challenges in a gentle way. Includes study questions for congregational use.