21 tips for creating buyer personas
What the heck is a buyer persona and why does it matter? Basically, a buyer persona is to your marketing, sales and communications strategy what a mannequin is to clothing. It gives you a model to base your decisions on.
Personas are short descriptions or biographies of fictitious, archetypical customers—or more accurately, prospective customers.
The idea is [...]
The Consumer’s Dilemma
Facing a personal purchase decision of import, I found myself staring down the very same consumer’s dilemma posed here by Financial Editor Joseph Lazzaro for BloggingStocks. To save or not to save? Here’s what one economist forecast.
What would make the strongest case for a large fiscal stimulus package – – upwards of $1 trillion for [...]
Scribd as a Resource for Marketing Research
Scribd
(tags: sharing web2.0 research consumer_research)
5 marketing megatrends you can’t ignore
This is a fascinating article about marketing megatrends by my friend Adam Kleinberg, CEO of Traction.
Our society is undergoing massive fundamental transitions. Learn how these forward-thinking brands seized the underlying marketing opportunities.
Article Highlights
Savvy marketers are recognizing the impact of mass collaboration and constant connectivity
The broader trends of globalization and corporate distrust are reshaping how [...]
Social Media Advisor for Gap Presents Results from Twitter & Facebook
I had the privilege of hoodwinking Robin Frank, Social Media Advisor for Gap Inc. among others, into speaking on a panel of social media pundits, at the first meeting of the Marin County chapter of Women In Consulting.
At this fascinating presentation, Robin discussed [...]
5 steps to going viral on Twitter
This is a fascinating article by Copyblogger writer Dan Zarella on going viral on Twitter. In it, he susses out some particulars such as best time of day to retweet, why the word “please” is important, etc. As a copywriter, I’m pleased that some of it is good old fashioned direct marketing, such as the [...]
6 questions to define creative strategy
Common-sense tips from a graphic designer that apply to us copywriters, marketing strategists and business folks too…
Six Questions to Define Creative Strategy
Tips to speed and improve creative design results.
By Susan Sharman, Sharman Studios
As a graphic designer, I spend a lot of time trying to explain the creative process. How do I envision layouts? Choose [...]
Dirty Jobs’ Mike Rowe on lamb castration, PETA, and the war on American labor
Drawing on his experiences picking up roadkill, feeding swine, and castrating a lamb with his teeth, Mike Rowe, host of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs, discusses how modern American culture belittles necessary labor. And, as he points out, not only is the labor these people do necessary, but many of the people doing it are actually–wait [...]
Romanelli plays matchmaker for Credit Union
In my continuing effort as a copywriter and marketing strategist to bring you tales of marketing success in The Current Economy, regardless of whether or not I had anything to do with them, here’s guest-blogger Bernie Freytag, Creative Director at Romanelli Communications. Bernie will tell you about how this “lean, agile, flexible and focused” agency [...]
How to get people to buy from you, right now
I’m going to tell you one of the Great Marketing Strategy Secrets to Still Making Sales, Even in This Crazy Economy.
It’s not copywriting. Or art direction. Or social media, video, or SEO strategy. (Although all those things can help.)
Ready?
It’s the offer.
Offer something of value to your customers, something they really want, and they will [...]
5 reasons why Susan Boyle went viral
You can’t guarantee anything’s going to go viral, even with the best intent. So here’s my two cents on why a 48-year-old woman named Susan Boyle is taking the world by storm.
1. She’s genuine. Unless this is the biggest marketing ploy ever (and if it is, I gotta hand it to them), Susan Boyle is [...]
Lead generation and Loch Ness
Leviathan. The Loch Ness Monster. The Kraken. The Devil Fish. What do these infamous sea monsters have in common with leads?
For one, there’s certainly a lot of mythology about them. After all, do these creatures really exist?
The answer is yes, some of them do. Leviathan may have been a blue whale. The Kraken is what [...]
Stop killing pre-qualified leads
There’s a simple mistake many marketers make day in, day out that kills pre-qualified leads. Leads that are coming in via organic search, paid search and paid advertising.
It goes something like this.
You’ve isolated the keywords your potential customers are most likely to use. You’ve put them in your meta tags, your copywriting, maybe even in [...]
7 superior alternatives to Google Adwords
Seven is indeed a lucky number so here are seven tips on selling more, but with a twist. This one is from an unusual source. Tammy Kahn Fennell runs VintageRareStuff.com, a site devoted to selling antiques. Here’s what she says has worked for her when she needed to find ways that outperformed Google Adwords. Looks [...]
7 and-a-half tips to start social networking
1. Get on Twitter.
2. Try Twitter Advanced Search to plug in keywords that apply to your business, ideas and interests. (You can even get an RSS feed as new tweets come in with your chosen terms. Personally, I prefer Tweetdeck as it creates columns with your searches in a nice interface and keeps updating them [...]
There is gold in them there social media hills
Razorfish has data that shows the rush to profit from social media is working.
The big takeaway is that “those who discovered an application via a friend (aka, via a social connection) were almost four times more likely to download it. They were also more likely to spend money on the client site and spent much [...]
How to think and act like a marketing leader
No long walks on the beach for leaders
Recently, a client asked what other companies are doing to differentiate their leadership and experience messaging beyond the usual “we’ve been in business for xx years, are an industry leader …”, etc. It’s a good question, as it’s easy to get trapped in your existing company rhetoric and [...]
