Devoted to online marketing, viral marketing, and web marketing

The awarding of the Nobel prize for literature to Doris Lessing, and the immediate response by her saying, "Oh Christ ... I couldn't care less," along with some critics saying it was "pure political correctness," underscores the importance of properly using awards and recognition in our marketing campaigns.

They are definitely one of the more powerful strategies, especially with our best customers.

Look at how they work, for example, with a company like Kroger's. The reason it is so popular is it is based on rewarding the behavior of those that visit the store on a steady basis and make a lot of purchases. In other words, it has integrity built into it, and it's extremely popular with participants.

You can say the same for those that use gas cards in a similar way. People simply love to be rewarded for being a good customer.

In our marketing campaigns, there are obviously incentives we can offer to get people to make a decision to buy; especially in our direct response initiatives.

But one are I think we could improve on, is rewarding our best customers. We could either build something into our system like Kroger and others do, or provide unique products or services at great prices for those who buy consistently from us.

The one thing we don't want to do is operate it in the way the entertainment industry does, or the Nobel Prize committees that base it more on making a statement in many cases, rather than true excellence.

Properly offering recognition and rewards to our best customers is a great way to keep them coming back for more. It's a great way to keep them in the fold and isn't that difficult or expensive to implement.