content marketing Archives

Imitation Is Risk Management in Disguise — And It’s Killing Your Strategy

Imitation Is Risk Management In Disguise And It’s Killing Your Strategy Imitation feels safe. It lets you sidestep risk. You point to what’s already worked and say, “Let’s do that.” But here’s the catch: markets know. Algorithms know. Audiences know. When you copy success instead of creating it, you don’t inherit credibility — you surrender […]

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My Buyer Journey To A New Website Host Proves Buyers And Content Drive The Buyer Journey

My Buyer Journey To A New Website Host Proves Buyers And Content Drive The Buyer Journey Humans are rational creatures, but there’s a lot going on when we’re in a decision process, and it’s not delineable to those observing. So complex decisions can look erratic. In actuality, buyers are ingesting new information and redrawing our

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Repeat Sales And Sales Ladders Work For The Same Reason: Trust

Repeat And Up-Sells Work For The Same Reason: Trust The Internet has opened the door to a cluster of new marketing practices, but it’s removed something basic, old, and fundamental: the trust conferred by having an address and interfacing with actual people. You can’t sell online or offline without trust. Marketers don’t often consider this,

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Start At The End Of Your Marketing Funnel – With Your Website

Start At The End Of Your Marketing Funnel: With Your Website Marketing has a lot in common with software development. Because it’s done on mutable/editable platforms, you don’t have to over-plan, and you can cut right to action, by ‘hacking’ as coders say. The one exception is to complete your website before you attract people

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Established Ad Platforms Versus Thinking About Where Your Tribe Gathers

Black Box Ad Platforms (That You Or They Configure) Versus Thinking About Where Your Tribe Gathers You have a couple options when putting your product or service to market: 1) using established ad platforms like Google and Facebook (whether you configure the targeting, or they do, or both), 2) thinking creatively about what Gary Vaynerchuk

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Email Marketing Etiquette And Best Practices

Email Marketing Etiquette Philosophy, And Best Practices Email is to your website what an invitation to lunch is to a speech at a convention – it’s a chance for a personalized, intimate, engagement. Email is the most personal you can get with your customers – before a sale – short of a telephone call. Don’t

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Do What You Love, And Never Work A Day; Serve Clients You Love, And You’ll Be Helping Friends

Do What You Love, And Never Work A Day; Serve Clients You Love, And You’ll Be Helping Friends We know, we know; you can’t stereotype all attorneys or physicians or homeowners. But different vocations and client bases do attract profiles and have patterns. If you extrapolate based on experience, and are honest with yourself, you

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Popularity Online Only Seems Democratic, Or Purchasable; The Actual Currency Is Social Currency

Popularity Online Only *Seems* Democratic, Or Purchasable The Actual Currency Is *Social Currency* Marketing technologies and VC-funded big marketing budgets have engendered a smug attitude with some new companies; telling them they can out-think the public, or out-spend their competition. In reality, the most-liked company wins. It’s absolutely a popularity contest in the closest thing

As Paid Advertising Dies It Will Go Crazy

As Paid Advertising Dies It Will Go *Crazy* As we discussed in a recent last blog post, paid ads both work and don’t work. They’re better than nothing, but not much. And they’re inferior to many alternatives. We’re in the midst of a paradigm shift (from seller-centric thinking to buyer-centric thinking), prompted by the buyer-driven

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Why We Almost Universally Ignore Ads And Why Marketers Continue To Insist On Them

Why We Almost Universally Ignore Ads, And Why Marketers Continue To Insist On Them Like many things, there are two sides to the conundrum of paid advertising. It’s a seeming paradox that needs to be unpacked. a) Ads don’t generally work and are a waste of money, and also b) ads do work, sometimes, a little,

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