NEWS RELEASE
For interviews, contact: Susannah Greenberg Public Relations, NY, NY (212) 208-4629, publicity@bookbuzz.com
INTERVIEW: Steve Cone, is the author of Steal These Ideas!: Marketing Secrets That Will Make You a Star, published by Bloomberg Press (www.bloomberg.com/books ). Cone is managing director and head of advertising and brand management at Citigroup Global Wealth Management. Along with five other senior executives, he coordinates worldwide brand management for all of Citigroup's businesses in more that one hundred countries, encompassing 200 million customers. Cone lives in Manhattan with his wife. Further information is available at http://www.stealtheseideas.biz/author.htm
SUBJECTS: Business, Marketing, Advertising, Promotion. Marketing tips. Cone can elaborate on the top ten marketing secrets you need to steal and more.
AVAILABILITY: Cone is available for interviews nationwide by telephone, travel by arrangement, and in the New York tri-state metropolitan area. A calendar of his travel/availability in other cities is listed below.
The Ten Secrets
You Need To Steal
To Be A Marketing Star
Steve Cone is the author of Steal These Ideas!: Marketing Secrets That Will Make You a Star, published by Bloomberg Press (www.bloomberg.com/books). He is managing director and head of advertising and brand management at Citigroup Global Wealth Management.
"An incredible cache of ever-insightful tips and ideas." says Steve Forbes, CEO, Forbes Inc. about Cone's book, Steal These Ideas!
Richard F. Zannino, CEO of Dow Jones, in the Wall Street Journal (November 26, 2005; Page P10) describes Cone's book this way:
"In less than 200 pages, Mr Cone provides a crash course on the art and science of marketing. He imagines his audience as aspiring marketing stars and executives, but even those of us who are not can benefit from his 'secrets.' His book is an busy executive's dream: well-organized, easy to read, packed with lucid opinions and lively examples. It includes bullet-point summaries and pithy checklists. He doesn't merely offer advice but unabashedly tells us what to do. He gets away with this less because of his advertising pedigree than because of the logic of the case he makes."
Cone's book is a short and lively incredibly useful read, but for those marketers who need marketing dazzle asap and can't wait to read the book, Cone boils down the top ten tips for you. They are all equally important.
The Ten Secrets You Really Need to Steal:
- Three essential marketing ingredients. Successful marketing campaigns have three essential ingredients. They are visually exciting, they create news, and they include a compelling call to action.
- Brand power is about creating a strong visual connection. Think the Marlboro cowboy, the glass Coke bottle, Colonel Sanders and Mr. Clean. Every successful brand must have a visual or written unique selling proposition that sets the brand apart.
- Don't listen to art directors. Art directors are dead set against anyone actually reading the ad you spent big bucks to produce. Insist on serif typefaces (type with feet) and overrule the use of white reverse type in any fashion.
- Emulate People magazine. People magazine is the most successful paid-subscription magazine in history.
- The power of personality. There is nothing more powerful than a company spokesperson who is an integral part of your unique selling proposition.
- There are few customers who really matter. Remember how few customers actually contribute to your take-home pay. In most businesses, 10 percent of the customers generate 90 percent of the revenue. Do you pay enough attention to these most important customers?
- The most important customer lesson ever learned. The law of renewal. If I liked the first Armani suit I ever wore, chances are I will want another. This law applies across the board to all age groups, in all cultures, from the dawn of time.
- Great marketers are great speakers. You will never become a marketing star if you do not learn to enjoy public speaking. Some of the best money you can spend is on the fee to hire a speaking coach. It will really pay off.
- Customer loyalty programs must have a perceived value that exceeds their perceived cost. Make sure your customer recognition strategy oozes real value.
There are six reason to advertise (in order of importance):
- Motivate your staff and make the feel proud of the company they work for
- Remind existing customers why they are customers
- Generate new leads
- Recruit great people from your competitors
- Get noticed by the press and gain more awareness from the public in doing so
- Build the brand. More awareness is always good.
 Steve Cone is managing director and head of advertising and brand management at Citigroup Global Wealth Management. Along with five other senior executives, he coordinates worldwide brand management for all of Citigroup's businesses in more that one hundred countries, encompassing 200 million customers.
Over his thirty-year career, half of it in financial services, Cone has earned a reputation for innovative marketing management, including stops along the way at Key Corp., American Express, and Fidelity. A true out-of-the-box thinker, Cone is known for imaginative solutions to tough marketing problems.
Steal These Ideas!: Marketing Secrets That Will Make You a Star by Steve Cone.
$18.95. Hardcover: 188 pages. Publisher: Bloomberg Press (September 1, 2005). Language: English. ISBN: 1576601919. Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.7 x 0.7 inches
Listen to Steve Cone interviewed on NPR's Marketplace on Dec. 29, 2005:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2005/12/29/am.html
Availability/Travel Schedule: Steve Cone will also be available to the media in the following cities on or around the following events/dates:
Feb. 8th – Magazine Day 2006, Ad Club
Boston, MA – Copley Westin
Feb. 9th – MIT Marketing Club Presentation
Cambridge, MA – on campus
Feb. 26th – Direct Marketing Association Conference
Westin Innisbrook Golf Resort, Palm Harbor, FL
March 8th – Promotion Marketing Association Conference
Hyatt Regency, Chicago
March 30th – April 1 – 24th Annual Inc. 500 Conference
and Awards Ceremony
Savannah, GA
For interviews, contact: Susannah Greenberg Public Relations, NY, NY (212) 208-4629, publicity@bookbuzz.com |
