marketing
1,028 posts
Unlikely
When you’re shopping at Uniqlo, it’s unlikely a sales assistant will ignore you. When you’re a visitor lost in Melbourne, it’s unlikely someone won’t stop to give you directions and a friendly smile. When you take a sip of Tea & Glory tea, it’s unlikely you’ll confuse it with a cup of Tetley. The be
The Link Between Actions And Outcomes
When we set a goal to achieve a particular outcome, we zoom out to consider the big picture. And while a result is dependent on knowing what we’re aiming for, it also requires us to do the things that give us the best chance of accomplishing it. A successful attempt to get fit doesn’t hinge…
By How Much?
Our financial advisor, who lives in another state, almost 3,000km away, stayed for dinner after our annual appointment last night. Sarah spent time catching up with our boys, chatting to them about their plans for summer and beyond. We exchanged dessert recipes and movie recommendations. Of course,
One Or All?
The blackboard on the pavement outside the florist reads; ‘Flowers for ALL.’ It’s a busy spot with plenty of foot traffic, behind a tram stop, a few doors down from the hospital. Maybe that’s why they’re marketing to everyone, instead of trying to resonate with someone. The marketing speaks to passe
Important
It isn’t just your mind that responds when you get an email with the subject line ‘urgent’ or ‘important’. Your heartbeat increases, your muscles tense and your breathing gets faster. You feel bad. Your day is thrown off course, if only for a moment. We hate these emails and resent people who fail t
Knowing What You Don’t Know
The most unhelpful assumption we make as marketers is that our customers know why they need our products or services. From there we think our job is to offer proof—to tell people why we are the best alternative. The first rule of innovation, sales and marketing is to understand the customer’s pain p
What’s Beyond Reach?
When U2 perform a stadium concert, their reach is the entire audience of 60,000 eager fans. As he sings the first note, Bono understands his job is to create an emotional connection with every member of the audience. If the concert goer isn’t changed by the experience, then she might as well have st
The Forgotten Marketer
The best marketer I ever knew was a magician. Literally. John Knight was legendary, and not just amongst children. His act was the highlight of birthday parties and community events. He could keep a group of sugar high children transfixed. But he also knew a big part of his job wasn’t the magic tric
The Art Of Differentiation
We, humans, have always been good at noticing what’s compelling about others. Our species’ survival has depended on our ability to recognise strengths and weed out weaknesses. Today, that skill leads us down the road of unhealthy comparison. We have no trouble rattling off the positive attributes of
The Power Of Constraints
What’s the best thing about the place where you live? What word describes your favourite book? What’s the first thing you tell a friend when you recommend a special restaurant? What standout experience made your last holiday memorable? What’s the main reason you shop where you do? What’s the biggest
What The Best Marketers Know
The call centre operator insists ‘this is not a cold call’. She knows time is running out, so she desperately accelerates her sales pitch—speaking without pausing to either breathe or listen. She was trained to believe it’s possible to close the sale if she can just impart all the information in her
Flipping The Focus Group
We’ve been using focus groups for eighty years in an attempt to understand how to create things people want to buy and messages they want to hear. And while we question what our customers like and what demographic they fit into, we rarely think about who they are beyond the choices they make. What i
A World Built On Promises
Today you woke in a bed the manufacturer promised would give you a good nights sleep. You ate something for breakfast that was made in a factory you have never visited or grown by someone you have never met. You belted yourself into a car with a safety rating you have no way of verifying…
The Value Of An Internal Brand Narrative
In a commercial world, we use stories tactically to convince and convert prospective customers. We work hard to change minds and capture hearts, with persuasive words and evocative images in an attempt to make an emotional connection with the people we want to reach. The stories we tell our customer
Choosing The Customers You Want
More cafes in Melbourne have begun offering a 10% discount to customers who bring a reusable cup. It’s an intentional choice that says something about their values and those of their customers. Theses cafes are attracting the kind of customers they want to serve. The clothing store manager gets disg
What Do You Want Your Brand Story To Do?
What’s the role of storytelling in your business? What are you expecting your brand story to do? Most of us tell stories to describe the value we create. Storytelling is a tactic used to convince or convert prospects to customers—a way to close the sale. We’re selling the power of story short. Befor
Why Not Make Something Great?
Like his grandfather, before him, Shane was in the textiles business. He made good socks for a living until the day he realised that pretty soon there would be no living to be made in a product that was good enough. His company was struggling to differentiate from and compete with big retailers who
The Limitations Of Marketing To Persuade
We assume sales and marketing are simply a case of fulfilling unspoken desires or unmet needs and making the people with those needs aware we’ve solved their problem. But there’s another piece of the marketing puzzle we often overlook—the doubts our customers must overcome. People don’t just want to
What’s On Your Y-Axis?
The strategy for any project or business and even our days, weeks and months could be plotted on a graph using an x-axis and a y-axis. What every endeavour has in common is time. This is plotted on the horizontal x-axis. What we can change or influence is represented on the vertical y-axis. In a…
The Visibility Paradox
A bullet point list of tactics to increase your visibility might include; perfecting your elevator pitch, networking, forming strategic partnerships or creating a compelling press release. You don’t need to look far to see that we’re expending a lot of time and resources metaphorically waving our ar
