Marketing

You Aren’t What Others Think You Are … But Your Business Is

March 13, 2013

Do you like ironies, paradox, and contradictions? I do. And I like this one a lot. And, better yet, it helps me work through some of the marketing angles for my business. You can’t define yourself by what others think “To thine own self be true” was Polonius’ last piece of advice to his son [...]

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What Really Happens With Idea Adoption

January 14, 2013

Seth Godin has a good post today on idea adoption. He calls it you’re not a slot, you choose a slot. It’s an important point:  Individuals choose a slot based on what sort of leadership or risk or followership behavior makes them happy right now. Early adopters and nerds like to go first. But some people [...]

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Seductive Sales Copy: So Easy to Say, So Hard to Do

November 7, 2012

I just read How To Write Seductive Sales Copy Like Apple on Kissmetrics. Good stuff. See, I’m doing it.  But, oh, yeah, it’s really hard. And it seems so easy when you look at it. Post author Henneke Duistermaat gives great examples, taken straight from Apple copy. Inspiring, but hard to do.  For example: One big idea. Short, [...]

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Every Business — Yours Included — Really Needs a Market-Defining Story. Really.

August 29, 2012

(Note: I’m reposting this here from my new blog at Eugene Social, where I posted it first a few days ago. I like it and I want to have it here as well.) Good market descriptions are rare. I write that as entrepreneur, consultant, and angel investor. I read more than business 100 plans, and watch [...]

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Can You Guess Small Business Owners’ Main Concern?

August 8, 2012

What keeps small business owners up at night? It seems so obvious. It’s the first guess anybody dealing with them would make. But here’s a survey that — to the extent any survey does — proves it.  Thanks to Marketing Profs I found Constant Contact’s (the email marketing company) Small Business Pulse survey for 2012. [...]

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Go Ahead, Search Me … and Give Me Better Info

August 2, 2012

What bothers me isn’t that Orbitz steers Mac users to pricier hotels, as WSJ.com reports; it’s that some people act like that’s somehow illegitimate, unfair, or deceptive. I say, on the contrary, give people what they like.  Not everybody wants the cheapest hotel available. Many people prefer paying a bit more for something better. And [...]

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Marketing Messages? Simplify and Repeat

July 27, 2012

Watch this video. It’s just 90 seconds, and it’s a great reminder. It needs no further introduction. In case you don’t see it, click here for the source at Stanford’s scorner video collection for entrepreneurs.

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Big Mistake: Meaning Mismatch in Marketing

July 25, 2012

Yesterday I discovered, to my surprise, that a good friend who does licensed massage therapy said she doesn’t think of herself as an entrepreneur.  In her mind, entrepreneurs want to get outside investment, hire employees, and grow their businesses fast. People like her think of themselves as self employed, sole proprietor maybe, small business owners [...]

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Marketing Plans vs. Business Plans: What’s The Difference, and Why Do You Care?

May 30, 2012

What’s the difference between a marketing plan and a business plan? Doesn’t a business plan include a marketing plan? Why would anybody do one without the other? Good questions, and since I get them a lot, I decided to answer them here: A business plan covers the entire business, including overall strategy, financial plans, target [...]

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Could This Be You? One Great YouTube Launches a Startup

March 9, 2012

CNET’s Rafe Needleman posted about DollarShaveClub.com yesterday and I picked it up this morning. It seems that the key to a successful launch was one extremely-well-done one-minute video on YouTube, which I’ve embedded here: I find this inspirational. It’s fascinating how this one big hit can be so effective. How much would a couple of [...]

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