advertising
241 posts
Why Getting More Hits To Your Website Is Overrated
Every day you delete messages received from faceless SEO companies who have “noticed you could have a lot more hits to your website”. We are often mistakenly led to believe that our biggest challenge is getting more people to pay attention to our products, services or work. Of course, we can game ou
7 Steps To Becoming A More Strategic Marketer
As marketers we spend much of our time and energy on tactics. We agonise over the creation of lead magnets, spend countless hours honing sales pages and perfecting social media promotions. How To Become A More Strategic Marketer 1. Take a long-term view of your business, one that doesn’t require you
The Power Of Customer Context
There’s a tiny hole-in-the-wall florist in the heart of the city, close to big office buildings and the cafes where people meet for breakfast and lunch. If it were an ordinary florist it would be the kind of place people would walk past on their way to somewhere else. The neighbouring florist’s made
How To Build Brand Equity
The toilet paper manufacturer has seemingly found a new way to increase customer engagement and build brand equity. Instead of just embossing patters on the paper, the company has decided to emboss its logo on every sheet. Imagine the meetings, time, energy and a myriad of other resources (including
Good Marketing
As she’s scanning organic bananas or buckwheat kernels at the checkout the assistant at local health food store strikes up a conversation. She’s curious to know if the bananas are just for making smoothies and what the customer uses the buckwheat for. These seemingly insignificant interactions are h
The Customer Referral Source Changes The Story
Not all prospective customer enquiries are created equal. An enquiry via website contact form, made as a result of a Google search is very different from a direct referral from a friend. It’s also worth remembering that the customer’s story at the time she seeks you out changes the sales conversatio
The Noisy Bell And Napkin Worthiness
John Lydgate was right, “you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” And yet a huge part of our job as business leaders, entrepreneurs and product creators is to meet a standard that pleases most of the people we serve, most of the time. Feedback—the information and reactions we receive abo
The Three Marketing Superpowers—Judgement, Empathy And Timing
Just two days before Christmas while every other retailer was happily dealing with long lines, the outdoor clothing and travel equipment store was empty. Not a customer in sight. They should have been doing a brisk trade in torches, camping accessories and stocking fillers, yet the assistants had pl
When The Marketing Works
We spend so much of our time in ‘push mode’ that we can forget to celebrate what went well or to evaluate why. When you make the sale it’s natural to begin working out how to make the next one. We make the next one by working out why we made the first. It’s important…
The Long Way Round
In most situations if there’s a shortcut we’re tempted to take it. It’s human nature to conserve energy and take the most efficient route from point A to point B. This makes the business of selling hard, because we are naturally impatient to see signs of success and to avoid nagging doubts about the
What Your Marketing Needs More Of
Think of a person you love to be around, someone you have rich and satisfying conversations with. It’s likely your conversations are a two-way exchange including acknowledgement, pauses and even moments of silence. Compare that to how we market to customers. We know that the best conversations make
Good To Do Vs. Right To Do
The brand new billboard spanned the four lanes of the freeway that led to the airport. The location was obviously a strategic move, given that the company being advertised was in the travel business. The gorgeous image of a lone traveller in the wilderness had likely been painstakingly chosen by the
Where Your Brand Story Ends
Like the gym in my city you can invest time, energy and considerable resources into telling your story. But the stories your customers tell are what tomorrow’s customers are paying attention to. Your brand story ends where their stories begin. The question might not always be, “how many people can w
The New Rules Of Email Marketing
The old rules are broken. Familiar email marketing tactics might enable us to extract one more sale, but they are definitely not designed to respect our customers—the people who pay our bills, the same people we hope to matter to. They are busy and smart. We should treat them that way. THE NEW RULES
The Downside Of Buying Attention
Some of the most sad and frustrated emails I get are from business owners who have invested money to get people to visit their websites. Often they have paid for search engine optimisation or Google AdWords and waited for the traffic to come—which is does, it just doesn’t always convert or deliver t
Not Everything Is An Opportunity
We first met casually, in a social situation one Saturday morning. Less than five minutes into the small talk Terry asked what I did for a living. No sooner had the words “I run my own business” left my lips, than his hand reached into his back pocket to draw out some business cards (one…
Before You Pitch
At the end of the event a small group gathered around the presenter. He had flown in from Europe the day before and was bound to be jet lagged. Despite that he had delivered an informative and inspiring keynote about how his company—one of the most powerful brands in the world, used customer insight
The Downside Of Adopting An Umbrella Marketing Mindset
The fledgling entrepreneur is embarking on a career in travel. She has just completed her training and is aiming to abandon the 9 to 5 and earn a great living selling discounted flights and cheap hotel rooms. Today though she is working her day job at the beauty salon so she can pay the rent.…
Your Secret Weapon
The following email landed in my inbox a few weeks back. You won’t have any trouble picking holes in this approach and avoiding them in your business. ——— Hi Bernadette, I was thinking if you need assistance with your cold calling efforts. We have a team focused on setting up appointments and genera
In Praise Of Intangible Value
What did they do to create value? Design a new portable music player or give you 1,000 songs in your pocket? Serve coffee at $4 a cup or become ‘the third place’? Create a platform where people can rent a room or make them feel like they belong anywhere? Start a photo printing service or…
