For many products and services, the field is cluttered with similar or the same alternatives. When that is the case, marketing is reduced to a war of price and delivery—this translates into low margins and fickle customers. For example, seemingly every real estate agent in the country markets his or her self as the top…
When choosing colors for your website, a good “rule of thumb” is three colors are best. Three hues are all it takes to create a mood or atmosphere. More colors than that and your site could end up looking more like a kaleidoscope. For most websites, the goal of color is to help communicate the…
For some, the sole purpose of social media is ruthless self promotion, if not outright narcissism. At the very least, they consider social media an outbound marketing tool. It is my opinion that that they are missing the point of social media—social media is all about two-way communication. For example, we all know that Twitter…
Talk about a high-class problem. You have delivered a specialized solution in a niche market while doing all the right things. What happens? You land an elephant for a customer who has an insatiable appetite for your product or service. By comparison, your other customers look like mice. You hate to admit it, but this…
What promotion strategy should you use: push or pull? The answer might be both. A pull strategy is defined as managing your promotional mix to encourage your customer to demand the product from the distribution channel such as a store or a distributor. The pull is driven by things such as advertising, coupons, or even…
Just be yourself—-I imagine that you have heard that advice all your life from friends, family, and co-workers. And it is true. This weekend I watched 12 student teams from my New Venture Creation class at CSUF present their business plan concepts to an executive panel made up angel investors, bankers, and entrepreneurs. The small…
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself you will succumb in every battle.” – Sun-Tzu, The Art of…
A lot of what we do in work and life is truly meaningless. We do these meaningless things because we think that we should do them or we think that we have to do them. But, is this really true? What if we just said no to the useless things and did what really mattered?…