August 2nd, 2022
Moving forward with communication tactics without a good understanding of the target audience, their current attitudes and beliefs, and the drivers that might lead them to positive action relative to your product or service is never a good idea.
On the other hand, many companies—particularly small companies—don’t have the time or resources to invest in expensive research activities.
It’s a conundrum—but one that can be addressed Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: customer analysis, effective marketing research, market analysis, marketing research, polls, Survey Monkey, surveying customers, surveys
Posted in Analytics, Business Development, Marketing and Branding, Marketing Measurement, Marketing Research | No Comments »
July 27th, 2022
On July 17 I got the daily Wordle word in just one try.
Creature of Habit
I did what I always do in the morning after waking up. I immediately grabbed my phone to check messages (like real people are emailing and texting me during the night; no, my messages are primarily ads and spam but I compulsively check every day anyway). I drank my first cup of coffee for the day. I read the daily paper (yeah, I still read a hard copy local morning paper even though about 99% of everything else I read is digital). I caught up on Words With Friends—and then I played Wordle.
Every morning when it’s time for Wordle I launch the app and then I just stare at the 30 boxes on the screen for a few seconds until a five-letter word “comes” to me. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: odds of winning Wordle, odds of Wordle in one try, probabilities, strange and unusual, word games, Wordle
Posted in Just Interesting | No Comments »
July 26th, 2022
If you’re not on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or other social media sites —and believe it or not, many, many people are not!—you may be missing out on some very important conversations. Some of these conversations may be about you!
In working with a client recently, we did some quick online research and they were shocked Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: brand analysis, Brand Management, Customer Communication, managing an online presence, monitoring customer sentiment, Social Media, social media monitoring
Posted in Client Relations, Marketing and Branding | No Comments »
July 26th, 2022
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 Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: brand identification, Brand Management, brand promise, branding, rebranding, top B2B brands, top brands, top consumer brands, top retail brands
Posted in Marketing and Branding | No Comments »
July 21st, 2022
What is an article about your company in the Wall St. Journal worth? How about in Nursing—or your local newspaper? Is the Wall St. Journal worth more?
Well – as in many things in life the answer is Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: best practices for media coverage, gaining media exposure, media relations, pr, public relations, working with the media
Posted in Media Relations/PR, PR and Media Relations | No Comments »
July 19th, 2022
I gave a presentation on employee communications recently to a group of about 80 HR people representing about 60 different organizations. I asked the group, through a show of hands, to indicate how many had an internal communication plan. None. Wow. Conversely, a majority of the group had Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: building brand ambassadors, communicating with employees, employee brand ambassadors, Employee Communication, internal communication plan, strategic internal communications
Posted in Internal Communication | No Comments »
July 7th, 2022
Sometimes it can be the smallest of things that leads to a lost opportunity from a marketing or sales perspective. Small things that can, I think, be easily corrected.
I had a personal example of this recently while working on a proposal for a branding project. I needed to gather some price information for some elements of the project. In two cases, I contacted two different individuals, asking for some estimates. In each of these cases, one of the people got back to me right away—the other, not at all. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: beating the competition, customer acquisition, Customer Communication, Customer Service, Sales, sales success, sales tips, selling effectiveness
Posted in Business Development, Competition, Marketing and Branding | No Comments »
July 5th, 2022

“Fast follower” is a term used in marketing circles to refer to a company that moves quickly to do what its competitors are doing, or to do what one specific, extremely innovative competitor is doing. But I’ve never really liked the idea of
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: beat the competition, competition, director competitors, follow the competition, indirect competitors
Posted in Business Development, Competition, Marketing and Branding | No Comments »
June 30th, 2022
You’ve no doubt heard the definition of insanity: “Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.”
It’s a common malady in the business world, and particularly evident these days during tough times. Companies know that the results they’re getting aren’t what they’d like to see and are not likely sustainable, yet they don’t quite know what to do about it. So they keep doing what they’ve always done in tough times – they Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: content marketing, Innovation, making marketing decisions, marketing budget, marketing channels, marketing missteps, marketing mistakes
Posted in Business Development, Marketing and Branding, Small Business Strategy | No Comments »
June 28th, 2022
Identifying the key benefits that answer the question of WIIFM (“What’s in it for me?”) for your customers and prospects, the first step in writing compelling copy. The second is positioning what you have to offer relative to what your competition has to offer.
In considering your competition you need to Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: analyzing the competition, beating the competition, competition, Customer Communication, direct competition, indirect competition
Posted in Competition, Content Marketing, Marketing and Branding | No Comments »