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Marketing Is Dead

Harvard Business Review

Help them build social capital. Traditional marketing often tries to encourage customer advocacy with cash rewards, discounts or other untoward inducements. Traditional marketing often tries to encourage customer advocacy with cash rewards, discounts or other untoward inducements.

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With Tweet-to-Buy, American Express Values its Community at $10

Harvard Business Review

When companies like American Express offer discounts, they often justify the spend by referring to the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). The company is better off offering a discount today, because that will likely increase the customer's loyalty, and loyalty increases the CLV.

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Don’t Write Off the (Western) Focused Firm Yet

Harvard Business Review

Finally, when you are at the conglomerate stage, they relate to social capital, as you move talent across internal boundaries and leverage personal relations with politicians, government officials, investors and other external parties who can greatly facilitate or obstruct your plans–not necessarily with the greater good in mind.

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Guidelines for Cultivating Customer Altruism

Harvard Business Review

Researchers conducted an experiment on getting customers to refer business to the firm, offering three incentives: $10 to refer; an opportunity to pass along a $10 discount to the friend (no reward for the referrer); and a mix of the two ($5 discount for the friend and $5 for the referrer). Social Rewards Are More Powerful.