November 16th, 2021
First there was AIDA, then the notion of a sales “funnel” emerged and the concept of a buyer’s journey that began at the top of the funnel (TOFU), moved to the middle of the funnel (MOFU) and ultimately ended with a sale at the bottom of the funnel (BOFU). But is this concept too simplistic—and too linear—to truly represent today’s buyer’s journey? Was this model ever relevant in a business-to-business environment? Are content marketers wasting their time attempting to create copy that focuses, discreetly, on TOFU, MOFU, BOFU?
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Tags: Advertising, AIDA, buyer's journey, Marketing, marketing strategy, sales funnel, sales strategy, top-of-funnel
Posted in Business Development, Client Relations, Internet Marketing, Marketing and Branding, Marketing Communication, Sales | No Comments »
November 11th, 2021
There is often tension between marketing and sales in many organizations. But why? Shouldn’t these two functions be closely aligned to most effectively achieve the revenue and ROI goals of the organization? What causes this tension, why is alignment important, and what steps can you take to bring these two important organizational functions closer together? Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Business development, coordinating sales and marketing, effective sales, marketing sales, Sales, sales and marketing
Posted in Business Development, Marketing, Marketing and Branding, Promotions, Sales | No Comments »
November 9th, 2021
I was having lunch with a friend recently when the topic of email – and difficulty in getting that email to its intended destination—came up. She was surprised to learn that some of the items that might be going to her “junk mail” or “spam” folder might actually be Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: building sales, Business development, finding prospects, Junk Mail, spam folder
Posted in Career Advice | No Comments »
October 7th, 2021
Social media has become a very cost-effective way to connect with, and influence, various audiences including customers and potential customers. In fact, over the years, we have come to rely less on more traditional forms of marketing communications (e.g., print or broadcast advertising, direct mail, etc.) and more on digital channels of communication, like social media.
Tags: brand journalism, content marketing, Facebook marketing, internet marketing, LinkedIn marketing, marketing with content, news jacking, social media marketing, Twitter marketing, writing content
Posted in Internet Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
October 5th, 2021
Effective corporate communication has always been important. Now, though, in a hybrid and continuing uncertain corporate environment, it’s more important than ever for organizations to determine how effective their corporate communications efforts are, and what adjustments or improvements need to be made to keep employees engaged, productive, and employed!
What worked pre-pandemic almost certainly doesn’t work anymore. It’s critical that corporate communications and HR staff work together to create a strategy and plan for moving forward.
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Tags: communicating with employees, communication strategy, corporate communications, employee brand ambassadors, Employee Communication, internal communications
Posted in Career Advice, Employee Communication, Internal Communication, Strategic Communications, Strategy | No Comments »
September 30th, 2021
Blindspots are something we all have based on our past experiences, interactions with others, and the opinions and values we’ve formed over time. I remember learning early in my career about the Johari Window in a leadership seminar I attended. It’s a model designed to help us understand and improve communications through the recognition that we all are impacted by the things we don’t know. Human nature is such that each of us has biases and blind spots that we’re generally not aware of.
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Tags: bias, blind spots, constructive criticism, different perspectives, employee feedback, Johari Window, overcoming bias, seeking input, unconscious bias
Posted in Career Advice, Customer Communication, Employee Communication, Internal Communication | No Comments »
September 28th, 2021
Man Working From Home Having Online Group Videoconference On Laptop
Over the past several months I’ve been very interested, even excited, to see how well the forced experiment with remote work has evolved. Since 2008 I’ve been working remotely. Even prior to that, I had several writing clients that I worked remotely for; most I’ve never met. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: effective management, effective remote management, gig economy, hybrid work, managing a team, managing online, managing remote workers, remote work, telecommuting
Posted in Career Advice, Employee Communication, Remote Work | No Comments »
September 16th, 2021
I’m often surprised that the most overlooked audience, when it comes to communicating with key constituents, is the internal or employee audience. Companies are generally pretty good about recognizing that they need to communicate with customers and prospects, but employees tend to be an afterthought. This may be because of the assumption that since employees are part of the organization they somehow “know” what’s going on. After all, it was in the newsletter or on Slack, wasn’t it? The fact of the matter, though, is that companies can’t leave it to chance that employees are paying attention to the messages they’re sending, or that they understand which are the key messages that they should be paying attention to. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: building brand ambassadors, communicating with employees, Employee Communication, employees as brand ambassadors
Posted in Employee Communication, Influencer Marketing, Internal Communication, Marketing and Branding | No Comments »
September 14th, 2021
Throughout my career, I’ve been involved in numerous naming and branding initiatives and am always struck by not only the intrinsic challenges of getting a group of people to agree on a particular name/brand for a company, product, or service—but also by the enormous amount of angst and emotion that becomes part of the process.
In truth, the process of coming up with a name—whether for a company, a product, a campaign, a department, or whatever is a process that is virtually destined to be an emotional and difficult one from the get-go. Why? Because everybody has an opinion, everybody has an emotional stake in the outcome and everybody wants their brand to be the next Nike.
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Tags: Brand Management, branding, changing a brand, establishing a brand, naming guidelines, naming your business, renaming your business
Posted in Brand Management, Marketing and Branding | No Comments »
September 3rd, 2021
In the newspaper business, the above-the-fold headline is a crucial aspect of grabbing a potential reader’s attention and enticing them to pick up the paper and read on. The same is true of online headlines – the hyperlinks that come up in a list when you search for something in a search engine. In addition to page ranking, an enticing headline is an important way to drive traffic to your site. With that in mind, here are some tips for generating great headlines. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: content marketing, content that sells, copywriting, creating content, effective headlines, headlines, WIIFM, writing compelling copy, writing effective copy
Posted in Content Marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing and Branding, Marketing Communication | No Comments »
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