Most marketers follow a familiar and well-travelled path.  They begin with a product or service to sell.  They tally up the benefits it offers, then try to tie them all up in a pretty creative concept and get them in front of the right people.  But there’s a problem.  That approach is broken, and probably…

Have you ever listened to one of those people who are busy cramming every available business buzzword and corporate catchphrase into every single presentation and conversation?  Just listening to them can be exhausting.  They may convince a few people that they know something, but most people tune out fast – and if you’re trying to…

In your market, is your company the best at what you do?  If not, do you aspire to be?  The answers to those two questions say a lot about your future.  If your people don’t have a vision of being the best, and a plan to get there that’s measurable, you’ll always fall short of…

The service sector could learn a lot from companies that sell products.  The latter are very good at creating desire – presenting their products in such an enticing way that not only are you aware of them, but you begin thinking about how you want them.  For whatever reason, people in service businesses don’t do…

When a company’s been around for awhile, they develop corporate habits, especially when it comes to marketing.  The choice of media and messages is often taken for granted.  But what if you were starting over?  What if you were launching the company today, with the same competition and the same rapidly-changing landscape?  Would you make…

With so many individuals pitching their companies’ services by e-mail, you wonder if they ever ask themselves if that’s the way prospects want to be contacted.  So often, businesses use the channels they’re comfortable with, without trying to find out if those channels are a good fit for the people they want to persuade.  Here’s…

When it comes to your brand, everything matters.  If you offer high-value premium products or services from shabby or drab offices, people will make some assumptions about the quality of those services from the surroundings.  The same is true of your lobby, your conference room, your vehicles, your business cards and your clothes.  People are…

Many companies (of all sizes) who aren’t tops in their market try to climb the brand ladder by doing what the top brand does, only better.  In other words, they’re trying to be that top brand, only more so.  This never, ever works.  The top brand got there because it staked out a territory for…

Here a common mistake that’s easy to avoid: using outdated (and cliched) images in your marketing.  For example, you can’t begin to count all the B2B ads that use a compass as the main image.  When was the last time you saw anyone actually use a compass?  How many people do you know who keep…

As QR (quick response) codes appear with greater frequency in ads, forward-thinking companies are finding new uses for them that truly engage customers.   A major paint manufacturer now places QR codes on the labels of some of its specialty paints.  Capture the code with your smartphone, and you see a video showing you how…