Category: Marketing
-
Marketing or procrastinating?
I’ve spent a lot of this week working on a new marketing program for January. This is a good time of year to do that kind of thing, since most people are either on holidays or thinking about them, so getting a decision on a project during this window is like pulling teeth (though I […]
-
First impressions really set the tone
An interesting lesson from video editing: I bought a new wireless microphone recently for my video marketing, and it’s 100% amazing, but because it’s a condenser mic it picks up ambient noise regardless and still needs some post processing. Not a huge deal; I’m used to it. My workflow has a noise removal filter that […]
-
For premium pricing, what you don’t do matters more
By all accounts, competing solely on price is a horrible strategy, but it’s also the easiest. Still, even if you aspire to being a luxury brand with higher than average margins, there seems to be a puzzle there, especially if you seem to be doing all the same things that your competitor is doing. Here’s […]
-
Marketing-driven design
I hate when I have to admit that someone else was right, especially when I held such a strong position for so long. For millennia (internet millennia, anyway, or at least since the dawn of software made for sale) there’s been a strong divide in many companies between sales/marketing and engineering. Marketing would seemingly promise […]
-
What the MythBusters cannonball incident means for SEO
Well, by virtue of the fact that you’re reading this, if you didn’t get here from the home page or the RSS feed, I think the easy part of the question has been answered. But this isn’t just a headline test to see where I can rank on a subject making the news right now. […]
-
The dangers of problem solving
If you’re good at puzzles, you probably picked up the problem solving skill before you learned about marketing. Too bad. Here’s the deal: lots of marketing, particularly direct response stuff, is full of clever positioning, open loops, and reframing products and services to raise the curiousity level of the reader. Sometimes, it’s a little cheesy, […]
-
Why I love copywriting
I spent half the day today writing proposals to program computers instead of actually programming computers, and damn, I felt good. I grew up loving books, but the way things were presented to me, the only way to get a job writing was to either be an author or write for a newspaper. Yep, that […]
-
The secret language of the market
I was on the road this weekend to Quebec, where many people speak English but it’s not something that should be assumed. My French is passable but rusty. A funny thing’s been happening though – I haven’t had to use it very much. That’s partly because I’m traveling with other people who’ve handled a lot […]
-
Closing prospects: how long should it take?
Over the course of the year, I’ve been lucky to have a number of potential deals fall into my lap (and I know I’m lucky because up until recently my biggest marketing effort has been to install a phone and wait for it to ring.) To the new business owner, it’s a euphoric feeling; similar […]