Marketing Is An Art

When you walk into the Bedford Cheese Shop in New York, you’re not seeing cheese sold by the pound, you’re witnessing art being made. A business owner who goes to the trouble of writing these kinds of descriptions on his product is not just a marketer, he’s an artist, practicing with intention, and generosity and…

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What Focus Groups Can’t Tell You

Steve Jobs famously said, “It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” The committee might be able to tell you what they think is working, or what’s broken, but they can’t tell you how to matter. And no…

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Everyone Owns The Truth

As soon as the flight landed (two hours behind schedule), people began jostling on the spot, eager to get off. The priority of course was people with connecting flights who might have a chance of making them. For others it was too late and they’d be spending the night at the airport hotel. A woman…

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The Trouble With Positioning

Do you remember when President Obama came to office first time round and negotiated with the secret service to keep his BlackBerry—Bush and Clinton didn’t even use email. In 2004, three years before the launch of the first iPhone, BlackBerry, who pioneered the smartphone had a market share of 47%. Four years ago Blackberry was…

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You Don’t Have To Matter To Everyone

We weren’t meant to be sitting next to each other. The European blonde, who didn’t want to be separated from her boyfriend for 10 hours overnight between Perth to Dubai, asked if I would mind moving to the middle seat in the row behind. So this is how I got chatting to a the chap…

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Demographics Vs. Worldviews

It’s impossible now to presume everything about your customers just because you know their age, sex and postcode. In a digital world, that enables ever increasing possibilities and choices, people are no longer constrained by location, age, or gender, and they are not so easy to put into a box either. It’s far more helpful…

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Hedging Is Risky

Have ever been scared to share more about what you stand for? Concerned about opening up about who you really are on your website? Anxious that the products and services you offer might put some people off? You’re not alone. One of the greatest challenges entrepreneurs feel keenly is the fear of scaring people off.…

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The Art Of The Offer

When we offer something, by definition we are putting it forward for consideration. And that’s often where we get stuck, selling our offerings, or ourselves short, because we become fixated on ‘the what’ of the offer. IKEA doesn’t sell you those six glasses and that red cushion you didn’t really need by honing in on…

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Don’t Just Build A Better Mousetrap

Do you remember when life was simple? A time when all tea bags were square and flat, and came with tea flavoured tea inside? Suddenly out of nowhere the tea landscape got messy and we had round bags, and bags with drawstrings. Tiny artisan tea companies sprouted up, selling boutique teas enveloped in gossamer pyramids,…

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Content Is Not King

If you Google these four words you’ll get over 600 million search results in less than 0.2 seconds. Amongst these links you will read articles about putting as much content ‘out there’ as you can. Others will urge you to ditch advertising and create content instead, because content is the new way to drive traffic,…

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