Posts Tagged ‘marketing’
What’s The Story They’ll Tell About You Tomorrow?
Don’t let anyone kid you. Telling your story, or the story of your business is hard and most people struggle with it on some level (how to write an about page is one of the most visited posts on my blog). But there’s a trick to tapping into the heart of your story. Start where…
Read MoreWhy More Is The Wrong Place To Start
The end goal of all marketing is more. More customers or subscribers. More sales and increased profits. This is the reason business strategy questions and answers often begin, (and end) with the ‘how to’ of getting more. But more is the wrong place to start for two reasons. When you begin by asking, “How can…
Read More7 Marketing Strategies That Work Better Than Advertising
Marketing used to mean advertising. If you wanted to sell something awareness on a mass scale was the shortcut. Remarkability or transparency didn’t have to be baked into your product. But we’ve come a long way from the days of Mad Men and the blurred line between getting noticed and being believed. Today anyone can….…
Read MoreThe Purpose Of Data
You know things about how people interact with your business or brand that you couldn’t possibly have known just a decade ago. You know how many people visited your website, from what country last night (or even right this second!). You know who sent them, how long they stayed and what held their attention. Your…
Read MoreIs It Time To Stop Advertising?
Last week I passed a moving kid at the side of the road, where cars sped by at 80km per hour. He was wearing a red sandwich board that screamed, “BUY ONE GET ONE FREE,” and had clearly been given instructions to dance about to attract more attention. I was 200 metres past him when…
Read MoreWhat Kills Big Companies?
For over a century Kodak knew that what was important to its customers was “Kodak moments” not their innovation and patents, (well their marketers did anyway). And yet they failed to translate that knowing into staying relevant to their customers. “Sales + Customers = Nothing Broken is the formula for corporate cyanide. Most big companies…
Read MoreWhy Your Brand Doesn’t Need A Unique Selling Proposition
In the 90s Pampers’ ‘unique selling proposition’ (USP) claimed it was driest nappy on the market. Procter & Gamble prided itself on this benefit, investing heavily in research and development to maintain its USP. In the end that singular focus blinkered the company’s understanding about what mothers really wanted. And while they believed that Pampers…
Read MoreNarrow And Deep Vs. The Market Of Everyone
When you were ten years old all any marketer needed to know about you, or the people in your street was that you owned a TV. In a world of limited choices big companies could afford to cast the net wide across the masses. No depth required. This tactic doesn’t work so well now that…
Read MoreThe Secret Of Disruptive Innovations
When the online eyewear retailer Warby Parker began selling boutique-quality glasses at a $95 price point they weren’t just trying to undercut the bigger players in the industry. Of course they did that and more, growing the company by 500% in just a year and mostly by word of mouth. The average customer who needs…
Read MoreWhat Does Disney Do?
Only one thing. They set out to make people happy. The Mickey Mouse balloon sales are a pleasant side effect of that. A souvenir of that time when the visitor felt the way she wanted to feel. In business we often set out to sell the cause, forgetting that what’s really valuable is the effect.…
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