Three Common Marketing Mistakes

BASICS EVERY BUSINESS SHOULD TACKLE As part of Washington Business Tonight’s Consulting series, I was asked to talk about three common marketing mistakes that small to mid-sized businesses often make. These can be summed up by “Do, Reach, Say.” Watch the interview here and let me know if you agree!

You Don’t Need Marketing (yet)

B2B companies under $2M in revenue don’t need to hire a marketing person, much less a Chief Marketing Officer This is a reprint of a post I wrote earlier this month as a guest blogger for the Entrepreneurial Execution Project run by Professors Waverly Deutsch and Craig Waitmann of the University of Chicago Booth School’s Polsky...

Communicate To Your B2B Customers Visually

Words Aren’t The Only Way To Communicate To Your B2B Customers Recently, one of our B2B clients decided to invest a significant part of their marketing budget to exhibit at the Licensing Expo in Las Vegas. The client is essentially an engineering company which produces a piece of equipment used to execute in-pack and on-pack consumer...

Lessons from Orabrush’s Giant Talking Tongue

I read an article in this week’s New York Times about how Orabrush has been successfully selling its product via YouTube videos. Click Here to read article. One of the key points of the article is how smaller companies like Orabrush are using YouTube to advertise. Orabrush has its own YouTube channel and many of its videos are hilarious,...

It’s Free Only If Your Time Is Worthless

I was belatedly going through way too many old Sunday New York Times sections recently, and I came across this terrific piece in the Business section by Damon Darlin from July 11. His point can be readily applied to my favorite soapbox topic: social media and the content generation it requires are most definitely not free. The article is called...

Lessons from a Spectacular New Product Failure

This month we have a guest blogger, Nancy Goldstein of Compass(x) Strategy. While Nancy’s firm focuses on brand strategy and marketing for environmentally and socially responsible businesses, she just couldn’t resist commenting on the recent launch and subsequent discontinuation of the Microsoft KIN. I thought she makes some terrific...

Customer Appreciation – The Power of Thank You

I was a loyal United Airlines Premier flyer for 15 years. I loved getting on the plane first, sitting towards the front in Economy Plus, and always being able to find room for my bag. Not to mention all of United’s wonderful international locations to which I took many a free flight over the years. However, at the same time, there was no...

Kellogg Technology Conference Recap

The Kellogg Graduate School of Management puts on a great Technology Conference every spring. It’s so good that it actually sold out in two days this year. Impressive! As one of the lucky attendees last week, I decided to really get in to the swing of things by tweeting tidbits from the conference. This was the first time that I have...

Marketing Strategy via Baby Steps: Do

In a recent TV interview, I cited “Do, Reach, Say” as three common marketing mistakes I see companies making. I thought it might be helpful to write a post about each of those elements, starting with Do. How is “Do” a marketing mistake? It is shorthand for the fact that many companies do not stop and think about what they...

Book Review: Switch – How To Change When Change Is Hard

Book Review: Switch – How To Change When Change Is Hard
DON’T BE AFRAID OF CHANGE Last month, Dan Heath lectured in Chicago about the premises behind Switch, the new book that he and his brother Chip have written. Their first book was the terrific and useful Made to Stick, and they also write a monthly column in Fast Company magazine. Switch, like Made to Stick, is an engaging read with great,...