If your marketing strategy is inspired by observations of Madison Avenue, I can pretty much guarantee you’re making this mistake. Most Mad Ave strategies seem to be based on the above simple (and idiotic) equation. And because trust in advertising is at historic lows, we’re seeing a comparable increase in ridiculously inflated claims.
My favorite […]

Most folks seem afraid of going after a target market. They’re scared that when they eliminate 99% of potential clients to focus everything on that 1% then they’ll end up starving and alone. So, instead of limiting their options, they target “everybody.”
Sadly, there is no such thing as targeting everybody because […]

According to the National Association of REALTORS® and their new ad campaign, REALTORS® get “Results” and have “Reliability.”
But do they have “Relevance”?
If you’re like 90% of the population (the other 10% are real estate agents) you’d think these ads are all about encouraging you to hire a real estate agent. Oh, but you […]

This ain’t your daddy’s marketing strategy. Heck. It isn’t even your older sister’s marketing strategy.
Unless you’re incredibly perceptive or a wonk obsessed with understanding the fundamental nature of marketing, you may not be aware of the profound changes going on in the world of marketing.
The change began with the advent of the internet […]

Tully’s Coffee provides us with an excellent opportunity to compare two schools of marketing.
On one side we have the creativity-driven 3:21 Wake-Up Call campaign.
On the other side we have the concrete benefits-driven “Tully’s has Free Wi-Fi.”
The Wake-Up Call campaign was an attempt to position Tully’s as the solution to the slump people tend to feel […]

I would have to write a big-ass book to explain how to design a good marketing strategy. But it would take only a short blog post to tell you how to know when you’ve got a bad one.
There is one absolutely positive, 100%, every-single-time indicator that your marketing strategy (barring some phenomenal piece of […]

Here’s a great post about what it takes to succeed in the new economy: 5 reasons why you tube and flickr are successful
Some highlights:
1. Do Something Better
2. Believe in What You Do
3. Community is Everything
4. Be Soulful
5. Be Authentic
Why it’s important
Flickr and YouTube are phenomenally successful and they got that way […]

Rachel from Writing With Meaning recently posed this question to the D/C Think Tank:
I love this site and your blog articles. I agree with all you have to say about word-of-mouth marketing, but I am completely stumped at how to start the WOM ball rolling.
I’m a sole proprietorship and the service I offer is […]

Safeway brings us yet another marketing lesson.
Mercifully, they’ve dropped the “Ingredients for Life” campaign. In its place we have a benefits-oriented campaign focusing, at least in part, on produce. The new tagline: “Our fruit is not just picked, it’s chosen.”
That’s great! Now that’s a good reason to choose Safeway. I mean, […]

Researchers say we’re exposed to 3000 commercial messages every day.
Pretty impressive considering that we’re only awake for 960 minutes a day (16 hours x 60 minutes). That averages out to a whopping 3.125 per minute!
At some point you reach saturation and people start tuning it out. And if you ask me, I’d say […]

If you keep up with the marketing gurus of the day you’ve heard it over and over again: “It’s not about you. It’s about THEM.” It’s good advice. Great advice, even. Nobody cares about you. They just care about what you can do for them.
Though all this sounds obvious, few […]

When a customer encounters your business, what is their first expenditure?
Easy, right? You deposited it in the bank. You even know the date and time.
Nope. The first expenditure — that is, the first time they gave you something of value — was the first time they paid attention to you. […]

Intuitively, viral marketing makes sense. It’s free exposure. People like it. They tell their friends. It gets covered in USA Today. With thousands of people aware of your business, how can it not turn into clients?
How indeed.
The problem with this thinking is the same problem with traditional marketing. It’s the belief […]

Most businesses and marketers have an almost dogmatic faith in the power of “Awareness.” It’s one of those self-evident truths that if lots of people know about you, you’ll get lots of business.
Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.
Awareness is just the critical first step. But on its own it counts for nothing. […]

I’ve been thinking a lot about blogs lately. At first I was skeptical about their use as a marketing tool. But then I did my own informal research and now I’m convinced… you need a blog.
Ok, not everybody needs a blog. Just the ones who have something worth talking about. But […]

Today I read some marketing advice that made me cringe. This “traditional” marketing firm (which shall remain nameless) recommended that when entering a market you study the most successful of your competitors so you can become just like them. The presumption was that if they’re successful they’re doing something right, so what they’re […]

The marketing world is struggling to understand the new marketing landscape. The old ways are crumbling as a new marketing order emerges.
Maurice Levy, chairman-CEO of the venerable Publicis Groupe, summed it up nicely:
“The way the consumer is changing is something that has never been seen before. It’s not just a change in […]

Here’s an exercise to give you clarity on your business and how you market it.
Start by creating a vision of the kind of client you want. Write down a profile, complete with a name, a background, likes, dislikes, lifestyle, etc.
Then, write a storyline about how they would come to find out about you. […]

Here’s another one I see every day. I call it the Small Goal Paradox.
The small goals are the easiest, right?
Dead wrong.
Big, really big goals are actually the easiest. Why’s that? Because big goals excite people. They’re something people want to be a part of, to support, to talk about. In short, […]

For a business, targeting is the absolute most important thing you can do.
There was a time, in the halcyon days of marketing, when targeting was simple. All you had to do was pick the demographic characteristics you wanted then push your ads in front of them through the media they pay attention to.
The old […]

The Referral Paradox results from the belief that happy clients should logically lead to lots of referrals.
But the reality is that happy clients rarely lead to referrals.
And to make matters worse, the typical response to this is to offer the happy client a referral bonus. And that doesn’t work either!
Perplexing, yes?
Actually, no.
Here’s what’s going […]

Why would a person choose your business over the competition? Is there something that makes you really stand out? Something that makes people say, “Yes, that’s for me”?
If not, you’re not alone. In fact, you’re running right with the pack. And that’s a problem.
It’s a problem because today, finding someone better for […]