Shouting To Be Heard

If we want our ideas to be embraced, we have two choices. We can shout to be heard, or we can listen to understand. When we shout, we’re not even sure who is listening. When we understand we know what the listener is ready to hear next. We all know which strategy has the best…

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The Right Words

When we have a message to communicate, we obsess over finding the right words. Which copy will convert better? How can we construct the perfect offer that draws people in? What we lose in our attempt to optimise the words is the ability to create a deeper more lasting connection with the reader, user or…

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More Powerful Than Tactics

Marketing tactics change weekly. It’s not hard to get thrown off course by the sense you’re being left behind. What should you devote your energy and resources to next? Which new social media platform is worth investigating and why? Is it worth attending networking events? What will your return on investment be? The new tools…

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The Shortcut To The Sale

Yesterday I watched a woman squirm as she was being upsold two post-treatment skincare products priced at $300 by her beauty therapist. Think about the context here. She’d just spent an hour with the therapist, giving her permission to ask questions others can’t ask and allowing her to touch parts of her others never see.…

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The Best Kind Of Self-Promotion

A new group fitness instructor arrives to teach a class at the gym. He’s an unknown quantity, but a few people give him a shot. Within a month his class is either packed or half-empty. The instructor who is struggling to get the numbers announces details of his upcoming classes at the end of each…

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Three Steps To Telling Better Product Stories

When it comes to marketing our products and services there are a couple of storylines we fall back on. We either invite prospective customers to look at our impressive features and benefits or urge them to notice how much better our product is than anything else that exists in the category. Those tactics may have…

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Beyond Attention

The black-gloved sales assistant in the jeweller’s window is busy polishing the stones in every ring. Totally absorbed in her task, she starts with the rubies, moves on to the emeralds and finishes with the diamonds. She carefully places them exactly two centimetres apart on velvet lining. The stones sparkle under perfect lighting as the…

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5 Ways To Be A More Resourceful Marketer

The problem with most marketing is that it not only feels inauthentic to the customer, it also relies on tired old tactics that do the opposite of what the marketer intended. It interrupts instead of inspiring, disconnects instead of delighting. We can do better. How To Be A More Resourceful Marketer 1. Pretend you have…

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The Best Opportunity

One of the best things about our family’s move to Melbourne two years ago has been the rediscovery of local shopping strips. In beautiful Perth, where we lived for ten years, our grocery shopping involved a car trip to one of the dominant, big chain supermarkets. In Melbourne, we live a two-minute stroll from a…

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When Does Your Marketing Start?

The conventional definition of marketing describes it as the activities we do to promote sales of products or services. If we accept this definition, then the bulk of our marketing is done once we’re ready to sell our product. Tactics like list building, data collection, content creation, social media outreach, networking events and leaflet drops…

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