Digital gives us opportunities to see our customers and to be more responsive to their wants. – Bernadette Jiwa That’s the promise, but it isn’t always the practice. We get excited about digital technologies like chatbots, the Internet of Things, marketing automation, artificial intelligence or virtual reality, but often miss the most important business opportunity. […]
Building your brand on moments of helpfulness
June 23, 2016 by 1 Comment
There is a difference between branding and being a brand. Branding focuses on the grand gesture. The big ad campaign with major media impressions. The breakthrough product innovation. The viral marketing event. Those things capture top-of-mind awareness for a short period of time. But in today’s noisy marketplace that awareness is quickly displaced by the […]
The helpful brand wins the heart
June 15, 2016 by Leave a Comment
One way to disrupt your market is to disrupt your marketing. What if you set aside the hard-sell persuasion techniques and the broadcasted interruptions, and instead served up a generous portion of radical helpfulness? What if helping people actually became your marketing strategy? Do you think you could still compete and win? Some brands are doing […]
Telling the story versus being the story
June 1, 2016 by Leave a Comment
The story you tell in advertising might make the things you sell sound better. But what really matters to people is how the things you sell make life better for them. It’s that experience that makes your story meaningful and authentic. Here is an example. MidModMen+friends is a Saint Paul, Minnesota retailer of restored mid-century […]
