The Unsurprising Way To Find More Customers

There was clearly a big job of work to do on the old Victorian home close to where we live. We didn’t envy either the owners, or the painting contractor who was slowly and carefully laying down dust sheets on that first morning, long before many people had started their day. The painter worked alone,…

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3 Things Your About Page Must Do

Your website’s about page is the place where prospective customers come to look you in the virtual eye and it’s also the most overlooked marketing opportunity you have. 3 Things Your Website’s About Page Must Do 1. Build trust. Think about the reasons we visit about pages. Mostly we want to get a sense of…

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What Your Competitors Can’t Copy

Back in the day our neighbour had to buy her gluten-free products from a tiny and very expensive range of products at the local pharmacy. If you wanted organic products you trekked across town to a speciality store. Not so today. As demand drives supply, competitors enter new markets and what was once a tiny…

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3 Questions To Help You Find Your Niche

Look in the jewellery shop windows in any western city and you’ll notice the same trends—rings, bracelets and necklaces designed to appeal to what most people like the look of. Jewellery designer Megan Auman found her niche by marrying her talents as a metalsmith and designer, to create pieces that would change how a particular…

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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…

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Making Things People Want

We are buying fewer pairs of jeans and more yoga pants, eating less gluten and more coconut oil. Trends are not simply a shift in behaviour, they are a sign of a change in the story we want to believe about ourselves. When you develop a product, service or platform it’s not enough to consider…

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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…

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The Business You’d Want To Visit

Matthew Weiner, the creator of the wildly successful TV series Mad Men carried that script around with him for four years, shopping the idea to whoever would listen. During that time people asked him if he was aware of how uncommercial his idea was before they rejected it. The reason the folks at AMC agreed…

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Why Did You Win?

Even when our innovation and marketing succeeds, we don’t always take the time to understand what’s working so that we can replicate it. We gratefully welcome and respond to prospective new customers every day, often without knowing how and why they showed up. Five questions to get you started 1. How did your last customer…

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10 Ways To Avoid Getting A One Star Review

Dear Business Owner who delivered a one star service experience, Yes, a bad Google review will hurt your business, but delivering the kind of service you’re not proud of and having to keep covering your back will crush your soul. How To Avoid A One Star Review 1. Care twice as much about how your…

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