A very simple answer to the question, “What does your customer think about all the time?” is: THE FUTURE! The customer thinks constantly about the future. In fact, since you’re a customer, too, consider how often “the future” is what you think about. For example, we may be motivated to get an education so we […]
Marketing
USPS Clothing – Why this is a terrible idea!
The U.S. Postal Service has announced it’s licensing a clothing line in 2014 as a way to boost revenue and to help reposition its ailing brand among consumers. This kind of thing is a common way for companies who have strong brand equity and favorable brand associations to leverage that brand into additional revenue. So […]
A toast…to the AMAOKC (Again!)
Sometimes being dead wrong can turn out to be a good thing! When the idea last year for doing an evening event at the Oklahoma City Chapter of the American Marketing Association came up, a banquet-type event (translation: labor-intensive event!), I was skeptical at first, and I said so. I did it in the same […]
How the ancients used to overcome objections…
Working to make a sale or otherwise win someone to your way of thinking? Encountering resistance or an objection is just part of the journey. How you handle it will determine whether you are to succeed in influencing the other person or be rejected altogether. An old (let’s instead call it “time-honored”!) model for handling […]
Having trouble getting started? Google It!
Google has an interesting guiding principle. They believe that everything – every product, every process – is constantly in beta. This helps them avoid the all-too-common “paralysis by analysis” that often derails businesses of all sizes. It lets them get products into the hands of customers so those customers can begin enjoying the benefits of […]
Die hard, already, DIE HARD!
I was so utterly, disgustingly, profoundly, disappointed to hear that they were making a Die Hard 5, I didn’t even care what the proposed plot was. To be honest, I thought the whole idea was just a rumor, then when I saw the trailer, I really thought it was a bad Saturday Night Live sketch […]
Two Texas brands you deserve to know about…
Earlier this month I had the privilege of traveling to Grapevine, Texas to help a fellow speaker and good friend of mine, Dave Lieber, raise money for a superb cause he co-founded a few years back called Summer Santa. You can learn more about what they do here, and don’t be embarrassed if you get […]
One reason marketers hate math…
A very popular local restaurant offers over 600 varieties of soda pop. My guess is they probably only sell about 20% of those (A partially scientific guess, based on the time-honored 80/20 rule!). This suggests that the return on investment (ROI) on such a broad inventory might not be that high and that a pruning […]