How did a British drama on PBS become one of the most watched shows on television, with its heartrending Season 3 finale beating every broadcast and cable show in its time slot?  By understanding that if you craft a compelling story, beautifully written and played to perfection, you’ll draw the audience to you — even…

Every industry has a “look” to its marketing.  Even if you couldn’t read a word of English, you could look through an American newspaper or watch American TV and spot the investment ads, or the healthcare ads, or the banking ads.  And that single, sad fact makes them incredibly easy to ignore.  If the whole…

How does Chick-Fil-A get away with spending about a third of what McDonald’s does on advertising (as a percentage of sales)?  Because Chick-Fil-A focuses relentlessly on every aspect of customer service.  And when people are served surprisingly well, as they often are at Chick-Fil-A, they can afford to spend less on advertising, because word-of-mouth is…

Too many salespeople believe that their goal is to persuade you to buy.  This sets up an almost instant adversarial relationship: you push, the prospect resists.  Even the language we use — “overcoming objections” — suggests overpowering the prospect.  The best salespeople know that their job is to first find those prospects for whom your…

If you want to add some punch to your pitch, consider adding a number.  Three steps to a better…  Five advantages of the new…  Just seven days to a…  Two new reasons to…  Numbers add specificity to what Bill Cosby called “the delightfully vague.”  They also make your message easier to remember.  How can you…

Every business, product or service — including yours — has some advantages and some disadvantages.  More often than you might imagine, shrewd marketing can turn a perceived disadvantage into an advantage.  Are you smaller than your chief rival?  Do you offer fewer choices?  Position yourself as a niche or specialty provider who digs deeper, and…

A salon owner did some research and found that girls between ages ten and sixteen purchase the most cosmetics among all ages of women.  So she gathered several groups of girls in that age group, and asked them what they liked — and not just about hairstyles and makeup, but music and decor as well. …

There were a lot of mp3 players available before Apple got into the game.  So how did the iPod become the standard?  Simple.  No, really — that’s the answer.  They made it much simpler for non-techies to use than other players, and by blending it so seamlessly with iTunes, they made is simple to buy,…

Want a truly embarrassing experience today?  Go to your website, or grab one of your brochures or ads, and read it out loud.  Not quietly, either – at a regular, conversational volume.  Does it read the way people really talk?  Or does it sound all stiff and corporate?  Because no one wants to read that. …

Here’s a fun way to pass the time.  Start paying close attention to all the mail you receive, the ads you read, the TV spots you see and so on — and see how many actually tell the consumer what to do.  A compelling offer or call to action is critical to marketing success, yet…