difference
380 posts
Your Best Offer Advantage
While working on my next book I was considering commissioning some independent research. Following a Skype conversation with a representative from a global research firm, where the investment seemed way outside my budget I received “some great news for in the form of a quote!” The consultant had spo
The Win Loss Mindset
Trade shows are interesting. You pay for the opportunity to set out your stall and market your wares to a generic, gender or interest demographic. It’s a game of hope and pitch, with a lot of waiting and rejection in between. For every person who buys something another ten walk past—unmoved and unca
Where Big Ideas Begin
Big ideas never start with a big idea—they start with a small problem, impacting a lot of people, that no one has worked out how (or cared enough) to solve. Slack, Powerwall, Instacart, iTunes, GoPro, Simple and on and on, fall into this category. You have to name the problem before you can begin to
Marketing Is How It Feels
In a recent article I read that “….aside from a few television spots and billboards here and there, Apple pretty much ignores marketing and advertising.” This is simply not true. EVERYTHING Apple does, from the massive investment in package design that creates scissorless, video-worthy unboxing expe
How To Be Valued In Any Marketplace
Mike is ‘in sales’. He takes care to dress well, to tone down his tie and give a firm handshake. He begins every conversation with a prospective client by first introducing himself and then sharing his perspective about why he’s there. It’s no surprise that Mike is met with hundreds of rejections ea
5 Steps To Making Things People Want
Here’s the subject line ‘just curious’ email I got the other day. Maybe you got one too? The marketing consultant had gone to the trouble to know my name, but that’s where the personalisation ended. “Hi Bernadette, By any chance, are you interested in solutions for getting sales appointments and lea
The Power Of What We Measure
It’s easier than ever before to create a set of metrics by which to monitor our progress and measure our success. Click-through rates, subscriber numbers, impressions and customer lifetime value are useful data points. What if we measured our success by the results we delivered for our customers? No
The Gap Between Saying And Doing
You will have seen this image of a goldfish making a courageous leap from his bowl on countless websites. It’s meant to convey a message about a company that’s not afraid to challenge the status quo, of course it’s now so ubiquitous, it does exactly the opposite. Nobody in the marketing department g
The Marketing Should Be Invisible
The vibration you feel when you plug your iPhone in to charge—that’s marketing. The texture of the sheets as you pull back the covers of a hotel bed, jazz playing on a good stereo at the cafe, the ease with which the milk carton opens, daring to have an insane mode—all marketing. We spend a…
Nothing And Everything
“Have you got far to go with those?” the assistant asked, while looking me squarely in the eye, as he was deciding how best to pack my groceries. It was the tiniest gesture, nothing much, and yet it was enough to stop me in my tracks, because it’s not what we’ve come to expect. Nobody…
Why Most Marketing Fails
It’s hard to communicate your value if you don’t know what the customer’s definition of value is. Most marketing fails because the marketer doesn’t understand the story his customer wants to believe, before he tells the story. So the real estate agent starts describing the proximity to great schools
Re-imagining Your Business Growth Mindset
How is your business going to grow? When we think about marketing we are usually thinking about tactics we can use to attract new customers. Our stories are often designed to make people who don’t notice or care to buy or switch. The other way to scale is to retain a customer—to gain both his…
Marketing In The Connection Economy
Traditional marketing, conceived for an industrial age asks us to believe in the wisdom of the funnel. Create something for most people, compete for the interest of some of them and convert a handful to customers. Ironically what works in the connected economy, where our potential customers have acc
The Awareness Conundrum
Which is better for your business—more people who know about your brand, or fewer people that it matters to? It’s not hard to make our marketing more urgent with better calls to action, bigger ‘buy now’ buttons or a hundred and one other attention-grabbing tactics that don’t scale. What does scale t
The Story Creates The Customer
Have you ever noticed what happens at the organic cafe? As the customer places an order he asks what’s in it. This happens almost every single time. The experience, our posture and products—the story, create the customer. When we encourage people to believe something matters, we attract the kind of
How To Tell The Story Of Your Products
Why is real estate copywriting so terrible? Maybe it’s not that bad in your town or city, but wherever I have lived the copy seems to serve one purpose—to fill the space between the images and the floor plan in the brochure. Here are a couple of examples of copy written to sell million dollar…
The Importance Of The First Stroke
The coach leaned forward on her handle bars and across the bike path at the side of the lake. The four girls in the boat who had been training since sun up hung on her every word. “I want you to focus on the first stroke, nothing else. Just keep thinking I am going to…
Your Brand Story Is More Than What You Say
It’s a chilly autumn morning and the waitress in the cafe down the street is folding blankets to put over the chairs outside just in case customers are feeling the cold. The local doctor who is half way through her busy surgery, comes out to the waiting room and invites Adam into her consulting room
The ‘Only’ Metric
We often downplay our effort or achievement by using the metric of ‘only’.
Where Marketing Starts And The Marketing Ladder
For many business owners marketing begins with tactics. Someone suggests that printing flyers or making a ‘viral’ video to get the word out is a good idea. Even if the tactic works this time round it doesn’t mean you’ve got a sustainable strategy for connecting with your audience or building your br
