Direct Mail Gone Wild
You’ve got mail… Are you ready for a quick test of direct marketing best practices? How many “issues”, problems, or concerns (call them what you want) can you spot in this direct mail postcard? I’ll give you the first two since they are not visually obvious (and IMO probably the most problematic).1) The person this […]
Band-Aid Marketing
Let’s face facts. Even if you have a strategic marketing plan in place, things are still going to go wrong. How you deal with those problems is what separates successful companies from those that are just putting Band-Aids on their business and marketing problems. Does this Scene Seem Familiar? It’s mid-month and your CEO is […]
How to Get Tons of New Users for Your New Mobile App
I was recently interviewed by Matt Frary for his Podcast “Chaos Makes Sense” to talk about my success growing a social media app’s user base in a crowded market. We had some fun talking about social media and digital marketing. You can listen to the whole thing and let me know what you think. After […]
There Are No Silver Bullets in Marketing
How many times have you heard some version of one of the following? “ABC Company did so and so with great results. . . let’s do that too.” “Katz, Katz and Katz Consulting had a huge success with a client . . . we should hire Katz, Katz and Katz for our business too.” You […]
How a Small Business Can Market like a Large Company
Are you thinking and acting as big as you can? Years ago when I worked for one of Donald Trump’s businesses, I would hear “Think Big” all the time around the office. It was so prevalent it was meaningless. However, I think that the concept can suggest a number of effective marketing angles that many […]
Do You Offer a Guarantee?
Consumers love guarantees. Have you ever bought anything of significant value and not asked about a guarantee? Of course not. We all do it. There are many examples of companies that are now famous for their guarantees. They offer your money back, lowest prices, fastest service, satisfaction, quality, etc. Guarantees do a number of things […]
Marketing Tip for Sales People
Spamming marketers is a guaranteed way to fail at sales. But here’s a marketing tip for those who want to succeed. By now most of my readers know I have a “thing” about bad sales calls. Believe me, I know that making cold calls is a hard job. But if it is your job to […]
How the Lowes Twitter Team Closed the Sale – A Social Media Case Study
You’re probably not interested in the details of our home improvement nightmare. Before getting to the marketing point some background will help showcase how the @Lowes Twitter team truly believes in their corporate mission and that they understand how to use social media to grow their business. What Happens When Every Door is a Custom […]
Direct Marketing Tip – Inspired by Nordstrom – Part 2
This is part 2 of a direct marketing tip inspired by Nordstrom. As mentioned last time Nordstrom typically has great marketing (I have no idea how successful it is but let’s focus on what we know.) Postcards in direct marketing serve a great purpose and when used strategically they can help drive sales (or any […]
Direct Marketing Tip – Courtesy of Nordstrom – Part 1
This post was inspired by a recent postcard mailing I received from Nordstrom a few weeks ago. See image below. Nordstrom is a very large marketer. Most of what I have seen would be considered good marketing which is why getting this postcard ruined my expectations and caused me to stop and evaluate the mailing. […]
