Christmas shopping is a very stressful time for any man.
At least it was for me this past year. And the year before that. And the year before that.
I found myself scouring the mall a week or so before the big day, searching for some clothes for my wife. The very thought of buying women’s clothes raises my blood pressure at least 30 points. Buying myself a pair of Dockers is a walk in the park, but when you start throwing women’s sizes at me, and then weird words like “petites” and “full-bodied,” I freeze. I look around seeing women far and wide looking at a full rack of blouses, picking one out and holding it up against them, and I long for the ability to spot what I’m looking for in the midst of the frenzy and do the same.
Marketing is one of those topics that is poorly defined and rarely understood. That’s because it’s so broad. At the end of the day, if you’re in business, then you’re a marketer. Every business is taking something – a product, a service, a cause – to market.
Still, we have to somehow simplify and understand it.
Here are what I call the Three Questions of Marketing. Apply them to what you do and see if you like the answers.
Do they want it?
Do they know about it?
Do they talk about it?
Marketing is as much a chemical process as it is a concrete, formulaic process. Seth Godin writes on a marketing point, using our hormones and chemical reactions as an example.
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The Branding Strategy Insider had Jack Trout’s mammoth insight on marketing wisdom, and I simply can’t pass up the opportunity to post this here. Be sure to visit the site for more info. Most bad marketing is driven by the desire to grow, which is in turn driven by Wall Street, which is in turn [...]
Everyone believes they are unique. Different. Not the status quo. A contradiction to the statistics. Everyone believes they have problems, issues and obstacles that have never been experienced by anyone. Ever. Everyone believes everyone else is normal. Of course, both statements are right and wrong. The only thing that’s normal is that we’re all different. [...]
An invitation by John Moore, via the Age of Conversation 2. The Marketing Matrix View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: media social) Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.
Seth Godin sums up marketing this way: “Make promises and keep them.” If this is at all an accurate definition (and I believe it is), then my marketing lately sucks. I haven’t called customers back in a timely manner. I haven’t followed up with vendors. I’ve been missing deadlines. I haven’t sent email newsletters out [...]
“Increased profitability. Decreased costs. Improved retention. More productivity.” Just about every business-to-business service out there today promises these end results. If you’re one of them, stop doing it. The problem is that every single one of your competitors is promising the same thing. Of course, that doesn’t mean that one of these end results shouldn’t [...]
Chris at the Raw Stylus opened my eyes to this bit of simple genius. Introducing the Firefox tablet – read all about it at Tech Crunch. No, you can’t get it yet. That’s what makes it even more exciting. The spark has caught on, and thanks to the openness of our new culture, anyone can [...]
