spreading ideas
846 posts
Marketing Inversion
When Amazon.com was still in its infancy, Jeff Bezos, the company’s founder and CEO had this to say; “In the old world, you devoted 30% of your time to building a great service and 70% of your time to shouting about it. In the new world, that inverts.” Shouting brought us Pop Tarts, Alka Seltzer…
Why How Matters
How you design the product changes how it feels to use it. How you train your staff changes how the customer is treated. How you answer an email changes how the recipient responds. How much of yourself you bring to work changes how you perform. In a world where more people understand the impact of…
Trust Vs. Hype
Malcolm Gladwell announced his new podcast last week. Before the first episode even aired it had jumped to #2 in the iTunes charts, topping long established shows like This American Life. It’s not just Gladwell’s record for writing bestsellers that’s driving people to the podcast. It’s that we trust
Getting On Your Customer’s Radar
Many brands believe the biggest challenge they have is creating more brand awareness. If they could only get on the radar of potential customers then many of their problems would disappear. And yet brands like Macy’s and Ralph Lauren that have built awareness for decades are struggling to remain via
The Heart Of Customer Loyalty
Despite everything we know about the benefits of fostering customer loyalty, most of our marketing is designed to change what people think or do in the short term. We change the label from white to yellow to get a millisecond more attention. We offer discounts on product lines we want to shift and w
The Way We Do Things Matters
My boys are lucky enough to have eaten pasta in Rome, croissants in Paris and hamburgers in New York. Yet, when the conversation turns to food memories, the one they treasure most is eating potatoes next to the Aga in a friend’s kitchen in Scotland. They remember the story of the potatoes freshly du
How To Reach Your Customers
Here’s how our customer’s time was spent across the various media platforms in 2015. Print 4% Radio 13% TV 36% Internet 22% Mobile 25% Here’s where we spent our dollars trying to reach them. Print 16% Radio 10% TV 39% Internet 23% Mobile 12% While we’re spending money in places where fewer of our cu
Quiet Success
Success for my parents, was having a fair day’s work to do, for a fair day’s pay. Success was having money left in your pay packet at the end of the week after the bills were paid. Success was having the wherewithal to take care of your family and contribute to your community—often in ways…
What’s Your Big Idea?
Every great brand leads with one big idea. The big idea is what the brand stands for—it’s core belief. Articulating the big idea is harder than you think, living it every day is even harder than that. The brands that do have a much easier time differentiating themselves from the competition. Here ar
Where Do You Want Your Story To Land?
This is the story of two independent bookstores located on the same street, separated by a walkway and three cafes. The bigger store has a more spacious feel. They display most of their books face out in clearly labeled categories. New releases are showcased in easily accessible, neat piles on table
Are Your Business Goals And Actions Aligned?
He pushed the door. It was only when it didn’t give that he noticed the handwritten “back in ten minutes” sign. John was already twenty minutes into his lunch break. He just didn’t have time to hang around to buy the new picture book he’d promised he would read to his daughter tonight. He swore…
Your One And Only Shot
Dave volunteered to fill in for another gym instructor at the last minute. He arrived late for class and was greeted by a full house of enthusiastic morning gym goers, weights at their feet, water bottles at the ready. He hit his first obstacle within minutes. The gym didn’t supply the workout music
A Question Of Attention
Have you noticed that more email marketers are trying to attract your attention at the weekend? Many weekly digests now hit inboxes outside office hours in the hope of getting traction when people are less busy. As marketers we’re using every trick in the book to capture attention in order to furthe
Hedging Your Bets Vs A Stake In The Ground
When we’re having problems articulating our story or making ideas resonate it’s often because we’re afraid of putting a stake in the ground. It seems safer to hedge our bets and easier to be more things to more people, than to commit to choosing who to matter to. When you narrow your focus and stake
Brand Storytelling And The Rule Of One
Have you ever wondered why movies like Toy Story are so compelling and successful? The best writers in the world speak to universal human themes—the things that drive every one of us no matter what our worldview is. Compelling storylines work because we see ourselves reflected in the characters. The
Because We Can
It’s a brisk Autumn Monday. The city’s lunchtime trams are busy. As we turn into Collins Street the tram driver begins an unscripted dialogue. He tells us that we’re at “the Paris end” of Collins street in the world’s most liveable city, reminding us that this is “no flash in the pan” because Melbou
The Powerful Sales Question We Forget To Ask
It was a busy Saturday morning in the department store. Lucy, the kitchen appliance sales assistant didn’t have a lot of time on her hands. She needed to work as efficiently as possible while ensuring that customers felt seen and heard. Lucy’s first customer was shopping for an electric blender. Lik
The Three Steps To Articulating Value
It’s tempting to begin with product and service descriptions when you are communicating the value your business creates. Of course, it’s easier to start with what we know for sure. We list features, benefits and specifications—telling the customer as much as we can about ‘the what’. And all the whil
Beyond The Point Of Sale
Many marketing strategies focus on the point of sale. Most great brand stories focus on what happens before and after the point of sale. We win by considering who the customer is, and helping him to become who he wants to be. This happens by understanding his story beyond the point of sale. Image by
Optimising For Customer Delight And The Peak-End Rule
Jody and Jim (not their real names) run a small web design studio. Their initial pricing strategy was to keep base prices low, putting time caps on every deliverable during the website design and build. New clients were informed about this policy up front. Things like design time and content populat
