The Celebrification of Life, the Universe, and Everything
Eventually, everything in the world will be marketed and sold by celebrities. Here’s how to prepare yourself for this terrible fact.
Category: Marketing
The Pitfalls of Retargeting
Retargeting is an easy way to get the most out of your online marketing, but it can easily corrupt your marketing data if you’re not careful. Here’s how to avoid that.
Why DSP Advertising Doesn’t Work As Advertised
Demand-side platforms (DSPs) were supposed to revolutionize how we buy online advertising, but they have trouble delivering for performance marketers. Here’s why they haven’t lived up to the hype.
How To Become Famous: An MBA Perspective
How do you become famous? Read a business analysis of the sources of fame.
Lessons From the Original “Mad Man”
Marketing has changed enormously in the past 50 years, and yet we’re still making the same old mistakes.
Money Does Buy Happiness (Sorta)
It turns out the marketers are right: money does buy happiness. Well, almost. This is according to the Earth Institute’s World Happiness Report which was commissioned by — get this — the UN Conference on Happiness. Scandinavian countries are heavily represented at the top of the rankings with Denmark at #1. The US is decent […]
Emotion Sells
If you’re like me, and you read a lot of evolutionary psychology books, you learn an odd fact: People feel first, and use facts to back up their feelings. We all sincerely hope that people vote, make career choices, and raise their children using facts and logic. Sadly, such is not the case. People use […]
Your website is only your customer’s second stop
Your website is not the sum of your online marketing. You must consider where customers actually learn about you, and then where they need to go to make you money.
Marketing Weasel Words #7: Season
Another fun marketing expression: season (n.) In the normal, temperate world, you have four seasons. In Thailand, there are three: hot, cold, and rainy. In Hawaii or Antarctica, only one. But retailers have anywhere from 12 to 24 “seasons” throughout the year. A season is basically anything that motivates them to change store decorations. As […]
Thoughts on Steve Jobs
I’m a little sad to see Steve Jobs pass from the scene. Steve Jobs was an inspiration to technology marketers everywhere. He made products that were simple, beautiful and delightful to use. He marketed those products in the same way: with simplicity, beauty, and inspiration. He didn’t talk down to customers. He didn’t manipulate customers […]
Your Resume Can Hurt You
These days I am doing a lot of recruiting — for marketers, specifically. And I’m here to say that I gleefully discriminate against candidates with bad resumes. Again and again, I see marketers who provide resumes with basic errors of spelling, grammar, or punctuation. Resumes full of jargon or meaninglessly vague words, with non-parallel lists […]
Marketing Weasel Words #5: Bicast Leather
It’s time for yet another misleading term only found in the world of marketing: bicast leather (n.) Bicast leather is to leather what astroturf is to turf, or what white chocolate is to actual chocolate. It is a horrible aberration that you can legally say is leather, even though it is really just plastic with […]
Marketing Weasel Words #4: As Low As
Here’s another amusingly misleading marketing expression: as low as (adv.) Asterisks ahoy! “As low as” is a deliciously ambiguous term that simply means that somebody, somewhere might actually get this price, rate, or deal, though it probably won’t be the actual human who just read the ad. Or maybe it could be you, if you were to accept the worst possible terms […]
Improve your resume dramatically with virtually no lying
I help a lot of my friends with their resumes, and they often suck. As a marketer, I have one simple tip for them: Stop telling the truth.
You always have two target audiences
Almost every Internet business has at least TWO very different target audiences. To be successful, you need to know who they are and appeal to them both from the start. For some reason, I keep reviewing business plans where entrepreneurs forget to consider one of them, which is a good way to fail out of […]