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Nov 26
Put Some Fun Into Your Day: Your Business Depends On It

Put Some Fun Into Your Day: Your Business Depends On It

By Podcast, Readings, True Stories

It’s Thanksgiving week here in the U.S. which means if you’re not planning the turkey or cooking the turkey then you’re certainly thinking about eating the turkey – or whatever favorite Thanksgiving treat you eat enough of to put you into a weekend-long food coma.

So rather than give you a lesson in my marketing processes, social media management plans or how I segment email lists (we’ll save those for January after the hangovers have worn off), today I’d like to share a little fun – because when we’re down in the trenches of business and marketing it can be very easy to forget that there is such a thing.

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Nov 18
Is Your Website Generating Leads? Fix These Things Now To Improve Your Chances.

Is Your Website Generating Leads? Fix These Things Now To Improve Your Chances.

By Podcast, Readings, Website Design & Marketing

Building a customer-focused, lead-generating site is a lot of work. The “building” part of a website is the easy part. But knowing what to build? Not so much.

That’s why so many sites languish and turn into an expense instead of a business asset that makes you money. Today I share a short list of things that you can improve on your site – from the tiny fixes to the big-picture strategy – that will increase your chances of pulling people in, keeping them there and getting them to take action.

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Nov 11
SEO Or SEarrrgh!? Search Optimization Pitfalls and Conundrums That You Need To Be Aware Of

SEO Or SEarrrgh!? Search Optimization Pitfalls and Conundrums That You Need To Be Aware Of

By Podcast, Readings, Search Marketing

It’s The Great Google Paradox: the less your site seems “optimized” the better optimized it will be.

Google wants us to focus on content and not on search results. But that has led to a lot of confusion about what’s right, what’s wrong, when you’ll get in trouble and what you should really be doing to optimize your site to be found in search.

Today I tackle a few of the pitfalls of optimization and share some insight into a smarter way to approach SEO.

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Nov 05
Attack Your Biggest Social Marketing Challenges With MavSocial

Attack Your Biggest Social Marketing Challenges With MavSocial

By Podcast, Readings, Social Marketing

Faster.

Easier.

Wouldn’t it be better if your social marketing was both?

We rarely talk tools but today I want to share one with you that has some nifty features that I’ve used to make my own social marketing faster and easier.

It’s called MavSocial and it lets you buy, store, edit, schedule and share photos, audio and video from one account. If it sounds like Hootsuite or Buffer that’s because of the scheduling part. But wait until you find out about some of the other tricks up its sleeve.

If this sounds useful to you there is a free account you can sign up for, no credit card required. I’ve enjoyed this tool and I hope you do too.

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Oct 29
Web, Search And Social Marketing: DIY Or CTM?

Web, Search And Social Marketing: DIY Or CTM?

By Marketing Insights & Strategy, Podcast, Readings

Ralph and I have a shared philosophy when it comes to things like home improvements, automobile repair and event planning. It’s the CTM philosophy and it involves one or the other of us picking up the phone to Call The Man.

It’s our generic way of saying, “Let someone else deal with it, preferably someone who knows what they’re doing.”

When it comes to marketing, there are some things you can DIY and others you definitely shouldn’t. Here’s what you can comfortably tackle (and when) and what you should think about hiring out (and why).

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Oct 21
How To Be Effective At Social Marketing Without Content Curation

How To Be Effective At Social Marketing Without Content Curation

By Podcast, Readings, Social Marketing

Modern marketing wisdom goes something like this:

If you want to be successful at social marketing then you need to share other people’s content 80% of the time and your own content 20% of the time.

I don’t know what the source of this dumb advice is but I would very much like to know who decided that this was the magic ratio and why it’s repeated as marketing gospel.

Here’s why content curation is not doing you any favors… and some practical, actionable ideas you can try instead.

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Oct 15
Improve Your Marketing By Tapping Into Your Failures

Improve Your Marketing By Tapping Into Your Failures

By Marketing Insights & Strategy, Podcast, Readings

So many times businesses fail to gain momentum on their marketing because they want every campaign to be flawless. When a campaign takes an unintended left turn, a business becomes hesitant to try again.

While you should do everything you can within reason to avoid failures, missteps in marketing are inevitable.

I want to share three of our recent failures so that you can (hopefully) laugh along with us and perhaps learn from our mistakes so you don’t make your own. Or if you do make mistakes, you can learn to pick yourself up and keep going.

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Oct 14
How You’re Being Tricked Into Wasting Your Marketing Dollars On Ineffective Programs

How You’re Being Tricked Into Wasting Your Marketing Dollars On Ineffective Programs

By Marketing Insights & Strategy, Podcast, Readings

Have you seen the $4,000 toothbrush?

It’s real, I swear.

And it begs the question: what makes a toothbrush worth $4,000?

The answer is pretty simple, actually. It’s worth $4,000 because that’s what someone is willing to pay for it. But when it comes to business the idea of value still lies in the return that a product or service yields. That makes it more challenging to work in the B2B space, because it’s a lot harder to sell something that doesn’t promise a better outcome.

And yet, paradoxically, it’s also a lot easier to trick you, as a business, into spending your marketing budget on something completely worthless. Today I want to talk about one of the most common marketing tricks that will get YOU to part with your hard earned dollars, all in the interest of improving your own marketing. And why you should shut your wallet every time you encounter it.

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Oct 08
It's Q4. What Does Your 2015 Marketing Look Like?

It’s Q4. What Does Your 2015 Marketing Look Like?

By Marketing Insights & Strategy, Podcast, Readings

It’s Q4 2014. With the holidays coming, you have very little time to decide what your 2015 marketing outlook is if you haven’t already done so.

But let me tell you one thing that you can take to the bank. In 2015 more of your consumers will be connected than at any time in the past. They will be online, using social media, looking for the products and services that they want to buy and relying on the information they find online to inform their decisions.

If you are reading this while sitting next to a truck load of cash, then go enjoy your money. This isn’t for you. But if you want to give your business a fighting chance in 2015, keep reading.

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Oct 07
3 Marketing Tropes To Eliminate From Your Tactical Toolbox

3 Marketing Tropes To Eliminate From Your Tactical Toolbox

By Marketing Insights & Strategy, Podcast, Readings

Have you read the story about Marriott International’s “The Envelope Please” program?

It’s stirred up a bit of controversy and got me thinking about dumb things done in the name of marketing. Turns out, dumb marketing is not only the domain of big companies. Even small businesses sometimes fall into these traps.

Here are three of the most head-shaking mistakes and why you should avoid them.

PS: If you haven’t read the Marriott story, I include a link at the beginning of my article. Let me know what you think!

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