Argentum Blog

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

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,...

Frame The Problem, Don’t Mandate The Solution

Many wise managers and agency partners have taught me over the years that when asking for changes to creative work, framing the problem you want the creatives to solve, versus telling them how to solve it will virtually always get you the best results. For example, instead of saying this: “Can you make the label bright green?” Say...

Three Common Marketing Mistakes

In my recent TV interview with Rebecca Cooper on Washington Business Tonight, I talked about 3 common marketing mistakes I see pretty consistently with my small to mid-sized clients. These mistakes can be boiled down to three words: Do, Reach, Say. 1. Companies do not know what they are trying to DO, i.e., they have no marketing plan. 2....

Argentum's blog, Marketing Op-Ed, highlights interesting, real-world examples of marketing with a little bit (okay, a lot) of opinion thrown in. It's written by Susan Silver, President of Argentum Strategy Group, with the occasional guest blogger added to the mix.