We strategic thinkers so easily get our hopes up sometimes.
Haven’t you been in those sessions before where you just know you can drive the group to truly selling out to some key objectives and committing together to make it all happen? Things are going well, you’ve got your tight list of objectives and goals, and it feels like some real barriers have been knocked down.
Then someone points out that there’s one small initiative that hasn’t been addressed in the objectives.
Then another someone points out there’s a small vocal minority that hasn’t been addressed in the objectives.
Then a couple folks realize John and Jane Doe, who have been around forever, aren’t going to think the objectives address an area they’re interested in.
And the snowball builds and builds and builds. And that demon known as consensus creeps in and starts turning tight, focused, strategic objectives into generic, limp, scattered corporate nonsense.
You’ve been there, haven’t you?
Ken Robinson on how school is killing creativity
“What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.”
– David Ogilvy
My take: I agree that it’s content that eventually makes consumers make a decision to buy. But I’m not sure it’s only content that makes people pay attention in the first place. Content marketing is a trendy thing right now (although it’s been around forever), and it is no doubt valuable and necessary. But it’s not everything. You still have to get people to consume that content. You still have to do enough to just get their attention. Content does it some of the time, but not all of the time.
You need form and content. You need emotional stimulus to make someone want to buy, and logical stimulus to make someone happy they bought.
Form and content serve different purposes, but they are both equally important.
“Any real record person knows that the number one most powerful marketing tool when it comes to music is repetition.”
– Nile Rodgers
My take: First, I think it’s awesome I get to use a Nile Rodgers quote and apply it to marketing. The guy is a studio guitar legend.
As Nile describes it above, think of all the hits and stars that have been made simply because a program director at a radio station simply decides to play the song every hour on the hour. Britney Spears, anyone? Think of all the songs you think are great simply because you’ve heard them enough to convince you that they are.
The repetition convinces us the song is valid. It’s popular, and therefore we should like it. We start learning the lyrics, and then can’t help but sing along. All positive experiences.
And all impossible without repetition.
Promoting anything you write and publish is a lot harder than you originally think.
You figure the masses will come seeking out your wisdom and creative genius. You figure people will be only too eager to open up their wallets and buy several copies of your masterpiece. You figure everyone who visits your site will subscribe after the first visit.
You figure wrong.
Which is why it’s imperative to find ways to leverage stuff well within your reach to help you in the process. Like leveraging your friends and their networks.
I recently posted this article, 10 Ways Your Friends Can Help You Sell More Books, over at Author Marketing Experts. This post was a lot of fun to write, and I’m eager to put to use all of the tactics suggested. You’ll need to read the full article to truly get the gist of it, but here’s a quick summary of the ten tips:
There’s a whole lotta launchin’ going on.
Just a couple days ago, Apple unveiled its latest iPhone. Which so far has received a relative “meh,” at least from us iPhone 4 owners.
The more interesting launch, by far, has been Amazon’s release of the Kindle Fire. And it has nothing to do with the product. It has everything to do with its position.
The Kindle Fire is a tablet going head-to-head with the iPad without being an also-ran like every other tablet that’s out there. Because Jeff Bezos understands that going head-to-head means you still need to keep things apples and oranges. That’s good positioning.
A large email service provider recently found that almost 20% of the emails they sent were viewed on mobile. As mobile internet use grows and grows, you may be thinking about doing a mobile version of your emails. That seems like a good idea, but then you realize that you’re going to need to make your messages look good on iPhone and Android devices. And what about Blackberries? And then you start to think about tablets. Suddenly, things have become very complicated.
As a savvy marketer, you already know how important social networking sites are in the modern business world. We don’t need to remind you that 78% of corporate executives believe social media is critical for business success, as a recent CreditDonkey infographic reported. You already know all about how to use Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter.But, did you know there are hundreds of other social media websites out there? Most cater to smaller niches that the big players don’t pay as much attention to. If these niches include your target market, you could be missing out on opportunities to connect with them. Keep reading to find out about 10 social networking sites you aren’t using, but should consider signing up for!
I was a pitcher my Freshman and Sophomore years at Dallas Baptist University. A little known fact about pitchers is that when you’re not pitching, you’re running.
Which gave me an interesting perspective to add at the Against the Wind 5k blog. I recently posted the mantra that drove me through countless laps around the campus. Up the steep hills. From foul pole to foul pole. And through mindless laps around the track in the Texas heat.
Are you familiar with this quote: “Attitude reflects leadership?”
I saw it written on someone’s whiteboard yesterday. I knew I had heard it before, and assumed it was a timeless quote uttered by a leadership guru of decades ago, or maybe a coach like Lombardi or Landry. Regardless, I couldn’t shake it all day, so I looked it up last night. Best I can tell, it came from this scene from the movie Remember the Titans in 2000:
