brand differentiation
1,053 posts
Attention Is Not The Problem
You’ve may have access to a hundred and one new channels that allow you to broadcast a message, but there are only a handful of ways to get attention for your idea. 1. Advertising The old and expensive way to buy attention. You might be able to buy eyeballs, but you can’t guarantee you’re changing…
Are You Measuring What Matters?
The cafe owner thinks that what’s most important is getting customers seated and served quickly. Because she believes her customers simply value tidy lines and orders pushed through, she creates standards and KPIs. She measures things that enable her staff to tick boxes and make them look hunted. Th
The Difference Between Traffic And Visitors
When you optimise your website for “traffic” are you doing your best work? Working out how to get “traffic” to find you is a tactic, that anyone with better technical support than you can win at. Giving “visitors” a reason to stay, means having a strategy for creating great content that can’t be eas
The World Is Your Focus Group Now
Think about every conversation you overheard today. It may have been on the train, in the coffee queue, or while you waited in the hair salon. You know, the one where the guy on his mobile explained loudly that his taxi hadn’t turned up. Or when forty something Sarah confided how stressed out she wa
Being The Best
When I was a kid growing up in Dublin we always sat on the top deck of the bus on a Saturday evening coming home from a day in the city. As we passed Christchurch Cathedral we pressed our noses to the window and looked out at the long queue which snaked half way down…
The Art Of Giving People What They Really Want
The group fitness instructor at our local gym is exceptionally good at giving people what they really want. During a tough early morning Pump® session he doesn’t talk about resting heart rate or thermogenisis. Duane punctuates those last thirty seconds of effort by telling us that this is how we’ll
How To Standout
Care more. Do what you say you’re going to do. Stand in other people’s shoes. Solve problems. Fix what’s broken. Change how people feel. Create what you want to see in the world. Don’t wait for an invitation. Think beyond what’s possible. Get over your fear. Act. Rinse and repeat. Image by EIO.
How Coffee Became As Seductive As Diamonds
I have no idea how this happened, but twenty five years ago when my husband and I were choosing my engagement ring on student budgets, I found myself inside a tiny strategically lit room with a £20,000 ring on my finger. £20,000 was enough to buy a house in Dublin in those days. Fast forward…
Well-Designed Moments Build Brands
That moment when the airline tells you that lost luggage is just a fact of life, or the sales assistant can’t exchange a faulty shirt on the spot because of company policy is a crack in the foundation of the brand. In that moment you begin to disconnect and feel like you don’t belong. Every…
When The Facts Are No Longer Enough
The window on analysis is shrinking. People are moving so fast now that they don’t have time to think. They’re scanning, swiping, clicking, liking, tweeting and moving on at full velocity. They’re making decisions based on feelings not facts. Often choosing not because of what they think, but becaus
The Last Thing You Should Rely On Is Your Resume
Your resume is not so much a testament to what you’ve done, it’s a timeline of where you’ve done it. The world doesn’t need to take your resume’s word for anything, it can find out more about you in three clicks of a mouse than you can tell in twenty perfect bound pages. When I…
The One Thing You Need To Learn From The World’s Greatest Marketer
Yesterday I did something I don’t normally do…I Googled Seth Godin. Not because I never have cause to, but because I have Seth’s blog on speed dial in my toolbar. The results made me chuckle. You see Seth has been circled by over 95,000 people on Google+ and he has never posted a single update…
Reframing How You Think About Customers
How many business books have you read where you are urged to think about how to capture the attention of your ‘prospects’? Quite a few I reckon, I’ve read them too, and something about the use of that word in particular always makes me squirm. A ‘prospect’ by definition is either a potential source
Why You Need To Change How You Think About Success
From the outside looking in success looks so easy. Successful people make it all look a bit like falling off a log. It’s easy to think that success happens in the moment, or is catalysed by one major event. Like being stranded while travelling, deciding to charter a flight and then selling tickets t
You’ve Got A Business Idea, Now What?
I’m sure you’ve heard the story about how Richard Branson chartered a private aircraft when his flight to Puerto Rico was cancelled, and how pitched the idea of sharing it to fellow passengers using a chalk board. Although he wasn’t planning to turn this into a long term business venture at the time
Why I Stopped Working For Coffee And 12 Reasons Why You Should Too
Are there still days when people ask to “pick your brain” and offer to buy you a cup of coffee? It’s tempting to take people up on those offers and flattering that they think you’ve got something valuable to contribute. I know. I’ve been there, done that and got the t-shirt. I understand the allure…
The Only Reason You’re In Business
The reason you’re in business is to make peoples’ lives better. Every word you write, coffee you serve or pixel you paint is nothing without an audience to consume it, and more importantly care about it. So here’s the question you need to ask. How does what you do, make, serve or sell make life…
Create What People Can’t Live Without — 8 Questions To Ask Before Launching An Idea
Where would you be without your laptop, smart phone, Google, take away coffee cups and quick drying nail polish? While you’re busy navigating your day today, think about what you couldn’t live without, the stuff that makes your life that little bit easier. All those things you didn’t even realise yo
What’s The Purpose Of A Brand Story?
If you’ve got a great product or a killer service why do you need a brand story? You only have to look as far as your local cafe or boutique fashion labels to see that all brands are not created equal, and what usually separates the successes from the failures is a good story. The…
The Only Reason You’re In Business
When you don’t answer the phone after the third ring. When the wait staff you hired forget to look people in the eye. When you make it easy for people to sign up and say yes, but penalise them for changing their minds, you are forgetting the only reason your business exists and why it…
