From the category archives:
It’s not that I’m against free webinars. Just cool it with the shouting, all-caps, annoying FREE!. It’s not a differentiator. It’s not unusual. Lead with something else.
You’re not Oprah giving every member of your audience a new car. You’re not giving away free meals, or even free coffee. You’re doing a webinar. They’re almost [...]
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Sometimes I think the common wisdom on customer service is too common and not all that wise. We oversimplify and we leave the dark side out of the story. Extreme customer service isn’t always good for a business. There’s a dark side to it.
You’ve probably heard this story; I certainly have. It comes up a [...]
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I just bought Predictably Irrational. I haven’t read it yet, but I had to buy it because I just read Jeff Atwood’s 9 Ways Marketing Weasels Will Try to Manipulate You on Coding Horror. Jeff relates his post and the nine ways to that book. Jeff says:
In fact, it’s already happening. Witness 10 Irrational [...]
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This is a simple two-minute video that makes a very powerful point about how fundamentals can change, evolve, and yet, still remain as fundamentals. It was produced by the Business Marketing Association for its 2009 national conference.
I’m told that part of it is a remake of a classic McGraw-Hill “Man in the Chair” commercial from [...]
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Very good reminder here about the way words get diluted, and then useless. In my early days in the PC industry all software was supposedly “user friendly.” And that phrase ended up mocking, humorous, a caricature of hype.
In this same vein, Steve McKee writes Five Words to Never Use in an Ad in BusinessWeek. And [...]
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You know who you are. You hate selling, but here you are, making your way as entrepreneur, having to sell or sink.
Me? I’m a terrible salesperson. I’m also bad at networking, cocktail parties, and small talk with people I don’t know. Do I seem stuck up, aloof? Not really, just awkward.
I’m probably still scarred from [...]
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What’s wrong with having some fun with labels and packaging? Nothing that I’m aware of. Although BusinessWeek doesn’t seem to like it.
My wife and one of my daughters came home one Sunday afternoon with a bottle of Shiraz from Virgin Vines. This is what it said on the label:
Dare to enjoy this wine without dashes [...]
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I picked this up while browsing Seth Godin’s recent post over the weekend. He had it here, as part of a riff on the new world of commercial advertising on YouTube. Good post too, but I ended up thinking this Dove commercial on YouTube deserves special attention.
(If you don’t see the video, click here for [...]
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About Dumb Obvious Blog Comments
by Tim Berry on July 30, 2009
in Marketing, Weblogs
Is this funny, or just annoying? It’s an alleged comment to one of my posts on this blog. And get this: the same comment also appeared, word for word, on another post on my Up and Running blog on entrepreneur.com. Two different posts, but the identical comment, as follows:
Great post, I agree. I think a [...]
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