Demand More Value
So things are slow right now and the economic forecasts show no sign of improvement. You have two choices – read the news all day long and wallow in the negativity or take advantage of the opportunities that volatility creates. No matter how bad things get people will still buy things and will seek out businesses that can provide a great value. At the same time, you need to demand more value from your partners and suppliers as well. For... [Read More...]
Drucker's Wisdom
Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. -Peter Drucker Read More →
Mixing Old and New Media
A while back I wrote this post about choosing an allocation strategy for online vs. offline media. My point was that it’s not such a good idea to write off anything that might be considered “old media” in favor of “new media” just because it’s fashionable at the moment. One of the main reasons for this is that large sections of the population are still relatively disengaged with the internet compared to the much smaller segment that... [Read More...]
Digital Insight
Razorfish recently released their 2009 Digital Outlook Report. It’s 180 pages long but well worth the read as it provides some great insight into current trends in digital marketing. You can view/download the whole thing here. If you have a short attention span there’s a nice summary here. Enjoy! Read More →
What We Can Learn From Pepsi
For over 20 years, Pepsi bought TV commercials during the Super Bowl. This year they are abandoning it and reinvesting the $3 Million or so per commercial they’ll be saving in various online initiatives. This is important for several reasons. For one thing, Pepsi is a huge company. It’s not like they have to choose between the TV ads and the online projects – they can easily afford to do both. By choosing to drop a strategy that’s... [Read More...]
Smith & Stallworth
Legal marketing can be quite challenging. For one thing, lawyer advertising is closely regulated by each state’s respective Bar Association. Without going into excessive detail, many of the concepts and much of the language you might typically employ in marketing messages is forbidden in legal advertising. All copy must be submitted to the Bar for approval and they have no problem responding with a long list of revisions to be implemented... [Read More...]
Using URLs in ads
Most marketers include phone numbers in their ads. It’s intuitive to do so and appeals to that most primal of all marketing urges – the desire for an immediate phone call in response to an ad exposure. But, as readers of this blog know, the process of earning new customers usually involves multiple steps between the initial exposure and the first transaction. One of the most important stops along the way occurs when someone is encouraged... [Read More...]
Electronic Measurement
Electronic measurement has been a hot topic in the world of broadcast media for some time now. Until fairly recently, TV and Radio audience measurement was tracked primarily through the use of written diaries that listeners/viewers filled out by hand (TV ratings usually combined diary results with a primitive set-tuning meter). As you might expect, this type of system is extremely susceptible to error. It’s not like the average person is going... [Read More...]
Recession?
I have no idea if we are headed for a recession. There’s an awful lot of talk about it in the media however so now is as good a time as any to talk about how to market during a slowdown (recession or otherwise). The first thing to do is avoid panic. Panic leads to reactionary tactics. This is another one of those things that sounds simple on the surface but turns out to be difficult in practice. Here’s what normally happens. At some point... [Read More...]
Calling Out
Let me just tell you how important I am. Over the past few weeks I have received personal calls from the Governor of Florida and most of the 2008 presidential candidates. Now if they only called once or twice I might not think I was that important; but I’m telling you it’s every day lately…sometimes multiple calls per day! I can’t begin to explain how happy I am to get interrupted multiple times per day to pick up the phone and hear an... [Read More...]