Strategy

A collection of 50 posts

Choices

Predicting Your Future Self

Answer this question: what will your life be like in 10 years? Go ahead and take a guess. The truth is most of us are unable to accurately predict our future selves. The challenges in making this prediction include context and time. You know what your past life has been

Search Marketing

Déjà New Marketing

Have you ever felt like you’re facing the same marketing challenges on repeat, only with fewer results than before? The tools that once worked—direct mail, cold calling, networking, or print advertising—aren’t delivering the way they used to. Welcome to the “new normal,” where marketing is evolving

Strategy

The Crowd Can Be Wrong

In my book, Deja New Marketing, I wrote about the “wisdom of crowds” or maybe more accurately, the lack of it. The truth is, crowds are often wrong. They get caught up in the same trends, the same short-term fixes, and head full speed in the wrong direction. Take the

Advertising

Déjà Vu

Have you ever had the feeling that you have experienced a sales and marketing challenge before, but were uncertain about what to do next?  Have the conventional tools become less effective for you? You tried direct mail, networking, print advertising, and cold calling. Nothing seems to work anymore. Welcome to

Email Marketing

Impermanence

A basic teaching of Zen Buddhism is that things are always changing. Just because we can see, hear, or feel something today does not mean that it will be there tomorrow. Essentially, nothing is permanent. And, so it is with our economic slowdown or meltdown or whatever you want to

Email Marketing

Differentiation By Personalization

So how can you differentiate your service or product from the thundering herd? Better stated, how can you create a clear competitive advantage that makes choosing your offering over the others an easy decision? Michael Porter, acclaimed Harvard strategist, describes a competitive advantage as something about a product or service

Strategy

The First Mover Myth

First movers get all the rewards or so says says the marketing myth. Don't get me wrong. Being first can be a wonderful thing, until the other guys find out about what you are doing. It is my observation that the rewards are seldom there for the first

Strategy

Strategy Involves a Long Term Plan

A few days ago a good friend of mine asked for my opinion about the recent stock market decline. His 401K had lost over 40% of its value in the last 12 months and the market was in a free fall, or so it seemed. He asked me if he

Business Planning

Strategy or Tactic?

Strategy is an overused and often abused word in the business community. People use the word strategy when they are in trouble or desperately need to change or need do something new. Losing market share and profits falling? Most people will tell you to get a new strategy. Strategy is

Advertising

Mutant Guppies Still Haunt Me

When I was kid I had an aquarium in my bedroom that housed dozens, make that hundreds of guppies and neon tetras. They seemed to multiply almost daily and I was quite proud of them. While I enjoyed watching the pretty little fish, I did not enjoy cleaning the aquarium

Strategy

Strategic Marketing in Plain English

There are many books written about strategic marketing and the authors seem to delight in making it look really sophisticated and complex. In actuality, strategic marketing is really pretty simple. Strategic Marketing is about analyzing opportunities while answering three basic questions: * What might we do? * What do we do best?

Strategy

Is Different Better?

"Different isn't always better, but better is always different." * Marshall Thurber, entrepreneur I like this quote because it sums up my thinking about how customers will buy an offering because of its differences not because it is like another offering. This is true even if the

Ethics

Crowds Are Dumb

"If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking." * George Patton, US General during WW II Please extend my apologies in advance to James Surowiecki, the author of “The Wisdom of Crowds”.  His best selling book suggests that groups make better decisions than any made by

Strategy

Green Marketing

Green marketing. What is it really? The best definition that I have found reads as follows---green marketing is the marketing of products and services described as being “environmentally safe”. Still this is a pretty vague definition. To be green denotes that the offering is good for the environment or at

Strategy

Unique Value Proposition

Every successful firm needs a Unique Value Proposition (UVP) which is fancy marketing talk for the reason a customer will choose to buy your offering. If you don't have a UVP it means that your offering is a pure commodity and you should not be reading this blog---I

Strategy

Why Franchises Go Bust

Franchises fail at an alarming rate. Yet, your likelihood of start up success increases when you buy a franchise, but franchise failure rates are higher than you'd think. Research on franchising in the US by Timothy Bates, a Wayne State University Economist, suggests that a franchise is not

Strategy

Boomer Cemeteries Full

Months ago I wrote an article called “The New Millennium Marketing Mega Trends”. It described how the retirement of the “Baby Boomers” (people born in the US from 1946-1964) will change our landscape and will create new opportunities for marketers. Little did I know that this trend would impact the

Strategy

Marketing Strategy

So, what is marketing strategy? Marketing strategy is all about analyzing business opportunities and attempts to answer the following basic questions for a business: what might we do, what do we do best, and what must we do? Thus, marketing strategy is the commitment and the plan for what you

Market Research

Small Company Competitive Intelligence Tactics

You own a small business and don’t have a lot of money for market research firms or consultants. What can you do to better understand your competition? Here are a few ideas: • Visit your direct competitor's stores and talk to the sales staff; it is amazing what

Segmentation

Is Niche Marketing Like Guerrilla Warfare?

Some people will tell you that niche marketing can be like jungle warfare and that you must conduct battle like a “guerrilla soldier.” You may have heard the term “guerrilla marketing” used by others. Admittedly, this is a powerful image but I believe that this paramilitary characterization puts the focus

Market Research

Know Your Target

The market place may seem large, but it is really made up of many smaller markets with customers who share similar preferences or needs. These smaller markets are called market segments. Your target market is the market segment that you choose to serve. Yet, to truly serve your target market,

Pricing

Life is a Cabernet

There is something special about a fine bottle of wine—for many, a fine wine is worth the hefty price premium. Yet, that price premium is how many wine lovers actually determine a fine wine’s merit--- the higher the price the better the wine. Scientists at California Institute of

New Product Development

Marketing Innovative Products

Innovative products need to be marketed and sold differently than other offerings since they require a special customer who is receptive to innovation. Most customers are skeptical and will wait until innovative products are mass marketed. Here are a few suggestions on how to market innovative products: • Not everyone will

Sales Management

Setting Sales Goals for 2008

Study after study shows that people who set goals accomplish more, achieve greater success, and accumulate greater wealth than people who don't. Read on if you agree. Setting your sales goals for 2008 should begin with a review of how you did in 2007. Did you achieve your

Niche Market Profiles

Market Online or Go Out of Business

If your business is not actively engaged in web-based marketing, it is likely you are going out of business. One of the best examples I can describe is the book business of which I am an active participant. The era of the brick and mortar retail store is quickly being