Paul Dunay is an award-winning B2B marketing expert with more than 20 years’ success in generating demand and creating awareness for leading technology, consumer products, financial services and professional services organizations.
Paul is the global vice president of marketing for Maxymiser a leading web optimization firm, and author of four “Dummies” books: Facebook Marketing for Dummies (Wiley 2009), Social Media and the Contact Center for Dummies (Wiley Custom Publishing 2010), Facebook Advertising for Dummies (Wiley 2010) and Facebook Marketing for Dummies 2nd Edition (Wiley 2011).
His unique approach to marketing has led to recognition of Paul as a BtoB Magazine Top 25 B2B Marketer of the Year for 2010 and 2009 and winner of the DemandGen Award for Utilizing Marketing Automation to Fuel Corporate Growth in 2008. He is also a finalist for the last six years in a row in the Marketing Excellence Awards competition of the Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA), and is a 2010 and 2005 gold award winner in Driving Demand.
Buzz Marketing for Technology, Paul’s blog, has been recognized as a Top 20 Marketing Blog for 2009 and 2008, a Top Blog to Watch for 2009 and 2008, and an Advertising Age Power 150 blog in the “Daily Ranking of Marketing Blogs.”
Paul has shared his marketing thought leadership as a featured speaker for the American Marketing Association, BtoB Magazine, CMO Club, MarketingProfs, Marketing Sherpa, Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG), and ITSMA. He has appeared on Fox News, and his articles have been featured in BusinessWeek, The New York Times, BtoB Magazine, MarketingProfs and MarketingSherpa.
Paul holds an Executive Certificate in Strategy and Innovation from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Computer Science from Ithaca College.
I used to work for an AT&T call center and, as you pointed out, customers feel a "lack of intimacy" with these contact centers. There's a tremendous opportunity for companies in engaging customers and developing brand loyalty, using social media. Smaller, more flexible companies, are already doing it. A few big ones are getting their feet wet, and are discovering the enormous reward using this channel for customer engagement.
@ Emmanuel – Thanks for confirming what I was thinking – we are doing the same at Avaya and it is really exciting to hear the responses and interact with real customers.
its a big change for marketing but a needed one
Hi Paul,
The author of the Logic+Emotion blog had an interesting post today – http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2009/08/smtop.html. I'd be interested in hearing your reaction. I don't think that what he says contradicts your position on social media, but it does underscore the importance of quality, and a company really wanting to engage with its customers vs. slapping up a Facebook page. Anyway, I thought you'd have an interesting take on it.
@ Tracey – I have a deep respect for David Armano and this post is very provocative in many ways.
For me it just underscores the fact that we are at the very early stages of Social and we have a long road ahead – these are great anecdotes to keep in mind so you dont fall into these traps
thats my 02 cents
Paul,
I couldn't agree more and am in the process of deploying our own blog and leverage twitter, facebook etc. as outposts. This is a new channel for us and today I am working on ownership and accountability. We were pinged last week and failed to respond. Need to think to this through. Your a great resource. Thanks.
Paul,
My interest in social media for customer contact is from a "unified communications" perspective, where voice conversations are becoming less important for interactions with people who are not easily available for a real-time connection.
The power of short text messages, that are immediately deliverable, and can contain links to other information as well as options for "click-to-talk," is a practical way to go for all types of business users (including customers), whether they are contact initiators, recipients, or respondents.
The interesting part is that automated business process applications can also use the social network technology as either a contact initiator or a recipient. This would fit in well with the emerging role of CEBP (Communications Enabled Business Processes). Coupled with increasing consumer mobility and use of "smart-phones," CEBP and social networking contacts should explode effective customer interactions.
Art Rosenberg
The Unified-View
@ Victor – keep up the good work!
@ Art (Unifed View) – Art we think alike on this issue CEBP and Twitter can have a lot in common for the business user – combined with other aspects of presence (from a UC point of view) and that my friend could be a new killer ap!
I remember getting a complaint e-mail from a customer stating that she wanted to speak to a ‘real human’ because the tech support from our homepage wasn’t giving her any answers she needed. After getting into contact with her through social media, she felt like she was pampered! Social media has revolutionized the way businesses interact with customers.
@Kristen – I couldn’t agree more – I personally touch dozens of customers each week with social media and there is this WOW factor that exists in having heard them and reacted quickly – and your right once you resolve their issue they feel pampered!