Monthly Archives: August 2012

5 For The (Long) Weekend, Vol. 5

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Five Great Marketing Links For The (Long) Weekend

No turkeys in this week’s “5”

Here in beautiful Spokane, our two-month summer unofficially ends with the approach of Labor Day. I saw a guy this morning in line for a cheese and sausage biscuit dressed in full ski regalia. The good times never last, do they?

(To you Virginians and North Carolinians: You’re jealous of our 75° days and 42° nights now… but you won’t be by October, believe me.)

With no further ado, here are five great marketing links for your long weekend reading pleasure.

So: Summer interns, for the last time, the envelope, please:  Continue reading →

My Horrible Print Ad, circa 1984

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Ad for North Carolina Economic Development

It’s an ad about education. Please, oh please, no typoes!

I just wanted to follow up my previous post about blogging – and how it’s not the end of the world if you occasionally make mistakes. Try to avoid them, of course. But don’t let the fear of mistakes keep you from posting content that’s vital to your strategy.  Most online mistakes are fixable. 

Continue reading →

My Horrible Blog Post

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Blogging can feel like walking a tightropeMy stats page notified me last month that someone had visited one of my old posts from April 2011.

I always liked that particular post. I wondered why it had never generated much traffic or any comments. There was no love for it at all. And it was about a circus. What’s not to love?

Let me count the ways.

First, I hadn’t read the post since I had originally hit the “publish” button. Had I taken a few moments to double-check it, I would have seen that I’d totally botched a nice little story.

The phrasing that was supposed to be ever-so-clever sounded phony. Entire sentences, and paragraphs, made no sense.  Continue reading →

5 For The Weekend, Vol. 4

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Bill Dorman compares blogs to restaurants

Great record from 1967, not a restaurant or a blog

Combing the blogosphere, the Twitterverse and places that can’t be mentioned in polite company, our staff has uncovered five blog posts that make a fine weekend marketing read. 

Soon you’ll be asking yourself, “What kind of restaurant is this blog?” And wondering if you would bring a respectable date here.

You’ll have to read on to get the reference. 

Without further ado, or explanation, the winners are (the envelope, please): 

Continue reading →

How To Avoid The “Solutions That Matter” Trap

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Strategic marketing messages aren't complicated

It’s message development, not rocket science.

For this post on strategic marketing messages, I was trying to invent a vague and completely meaningless example. The result: “Solutions That Matter.” 

Then I Googled it, just for fun. I invite you to do the same. 

I’m not sure how “Solutions That Matter” could add value to any brand, in any situation. Is it supposed to contrast with “Solutions That Don’t Matter”? 

Major brands can spend millions developing strategic messages to use throughout their marketing.  And still they get it wrong. Your business can do better, even if you’re bootstrapping it.

So with no further ado…

Continue reading →

5 For The Week, Vol. 3

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Five Links For Your Weekend Marketing Pleasure

 

Comedian Joe Biden

Joe Biden’s summer comedy tour continues all month

For most people, the big excitement on the Internet this week included Britney Spears’ love tweets to the Mars Rover, and boffo press reviews of the Joe Biden summer comedy tour. But you and I have something special. We get to look over the best marketing links of the week, as calculated by nine ArmentDietrich analytics interns and stored in a #2 mayonnaise jar on Funk &Wagnalls porch. (For a complete list of contest rules, please tweet me at @barrettrossie.)

See why I leave the comedy to Bill Dorman?

At any rate, here are some things I ran across this week that seemed useful or interesting, and contributed to the “lifetime learning” component of my personal plan. Continue reading →

Rethink B2B Marketing

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Rethnk B2B marketing

We’ve all been there.

 What if your B2B sales and marketing team consisted of high-level executives from your customer companies?

What if they were as committed to your company’s success as you are?

What if they had ample opportunities to directly influence high-level decision makers at companies that aren’t currently buying from you? 

According to a thought-provoking book, all this can happen, but not by accident.

Continue reading →

Two Grocery Stores, Two Lessons

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Yesterday, I went to Trader Joe’s.

Trader Joe's is doing something rightUnfamiliar with it? It has small tropical-themed stores, good to high-quality products, unusual brands and lots of neat imported “foodie” products (hence the “Trader”). There are free samples and friendly, knowledgable people. A lot of products have natural or organic ingredients. And nothing is sale-priced, ever. It’s all priced fairly to begin with.

It does have a limited selection. It’s not one-stop shopping like Target or Walmart. But I actually have fun shopping at TJ’s.

Then, on to Safeway

Most Safeway stores are big and beautiful. Their people are nice. They carry fine products, with many choices. What’s not to like? Continue reading →

5 For The Week, Vol. 2

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Five Great Links For Your Weekend Marketing Reading

5 Great Links For Your Weekend Marketing ReadingOnce again, I’ve scoured the Internet to bring you five links to increase your marketing IQ while sipping your morning latte. This week’s 5 include: a large brand spilling the beans about how it grew into a social media leader in its industry; a fascinating timeline infographic on the history of marketing channels; an amazingly in-depth primer on getting more out of Twitter; and two thought-provokers on the nature of marketing and the relevance of advertising.

The envelope, please…

Continue reading →

Musical Advice For Bloggers

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Long before any of us had any concept of the web or blogs, Kenny G had something to say about the risks you take in expressing yourself. What he said then, with sax in hand, is timely for bloggers today:

Kenny G

“During the show I play completely  alone. The rest of the band leaves the stage and I sit there (he plays a quick sax riff to demonstrate) and do that stuff.And I mean I’m putting my neck right out there. If people don’t like it, I’m gonna be feeling terrible…But, yeah, you’re vulnerable.

Because whenever you express yourself honestly, you have to put yourself in a position to where people may not agree with what you’re saying or what you’re playing.

And if you can do that, and just feel inside that you’re doing the right thing, then you can live with it.” Continue reading →