Creating Loyal Brands : Themes Of The Week...

So much content, so little time...

A weekly round-up of the themes and posts I found particularly interesting or useful.

This week saw a lot of conversation around the importance of employees in delighting customers, several posts exploring the challenges of staying successful, as well as some interesting lessons from the world of e-commerce.

To inspire your customers, inspire your employees...
I was brought up on a very simple philosophy: if your employees don't believe in your brand, why on earth should your customers? Several posts explored this.

Inside Starbuck's $35 Million Mission To Make Brand Evangelists Of Its Front-Line Workers provided an interesting inside view of their efforts to inspire their employees.
Don't Try To Satisfy Your Employees! argued that true employee satisfaction comes from delighting customers, and that leaders should enable employees to do this.
While What Circuit City Learnt About Valuing Employees highlighted the need for companies to treat their employees with respect, if they want to be successful. 

Avoiding the cliff of despair...
Several posts looked at the subject of why brands fail, and provided advice on avoiding it.

Clay Christensen, newspapers and the cliff of despair examined why newspapers and magazines have been slow to react to the technological and behavioral changes disrupting their industry.
"All for One" Is the Mantra That Serves Consumers First and Best argued that in a world of customers with unlimited choice and unlimited information supporting those choices, companies need to adopt the discipline of a great sports team, in staying centered on the customer. 
While Change As Your Customers Change proposed a 3-tier approach to equip companies with the capability to adapt to changing customer needs.

The rise and rise of e-commerce...
Some fascinating posts this week shared lessons from the frontier of internet retailing.

What Matters Most in Internet Retailing provided some real insight into the practicalities of finding customers.
Why Digital Marketers Need to Get More Personal offered some good, practical advice on how to create a personalized experience that actually works.
While Amazon's Secret Sauce presented an in-depth analysis of how Amazon continues to revolutionize retailing.

As ever, delighting customers is the name of the game, so let me know what would make this post better...