I think the correct way to do marketing, or the way the current landscape demands, can be explained using a metaphor having to do with comparing advertising to a rocket ship: Whats Wrong With Big Rocket Ships (AKA Traditional Advertising): 1. Traditional rocket ships are big, complex and are explicitly designed to be controlled. These […]
The Big Idea Is Dead
The “Big Idea” in marketing made sense years ago when the internet wasn’t here. It was wise advice when it came to writing a newspaper ad for example. If an ad said, “we have the best location, best service, best prices and best products,” chances are the ad isn’t going to be effective because the […]
Earning Attention In Marketing
I think there is a lot to be said about having a marketing strategy to create content/earn attention as opposed to buying media/buying attention. I’ve gotten used to most advertisements being avoidable if I don’t want to pay attention to them, so when there are ads that I can’t avoid, like video pre-rolls or in […]
PPC Strategy: Match Type vs. Negative Keywords
When making a pay-per-click campaign, the goal is for your ads to show up only for the people that they are most relevant for. Hence, match type and negative keywords as a way of doing just that. But what’s the right combination of match types and negative keywords? Here’s my theory: If you sell ballerina […]
Improving Grocery Stores With Data
The app Shopsavvy for the Android and Redlaser for the iPhone are pretty sweet. With the iPhone 3GS you can use its video camera to capture a barcode, then the app shows you price comparisons for that product online as well as comparing the price to other stores near you. This makes me think of […]
Links From Twitter = Better Traffic
Saw this on TechCrunch this week: Twitter [and Facebook] “will surpass Google [as a source of traffic] for many websites in the next year.†And just as nearly every site on the Web has become addicted to Google juice, they will increasingly try to find ways to get more links from Twitter. Because Twitter equals […]
The Former Audience Are Now Particiapants
Great talk at TED by Clay Shirky: In a world where media is global, social, ubiquitous and cheap – in a world where the former audience are increasingly full participants – in that world, media is less and less about crafting a single message to be consumed by individuals, and is more often a way […]
Business Websites Will Change
I think pre-internet, most people trusted big companies more than little ones because they were bigger. If you have never heard of a company then how can you trust it? Now that any company is findable online the tables have turned. Big companies that have static brochure websites, where they have their corporate jargon and […]
Super Crunchers
I finished reading the book Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres. I thought it was good. I liked his explanation of randomized a/b or multi variant testing done online and off. He explains that randomly dividing prospects into two groups and seeing which approach has the highest rate is one of the most powerful super crunching […]
Social Media Marketing comes down to 2 things
I finished reading the book World Wide Rave by David Meerman Scott. I thought it was OK. I’ll explain the problem with these kinds of books at the end. While I was reading it I came to the conclusion that success at social media marketing and having your business idea spread virally comes down to […]