Thoughts for the Week

  1. Plan Like There Are No Rules 9/30/2024

    If you already began planning for your business’ success 2025, including a marketing plan with supporting budget, congratulations, you are ahead of schedule. But now it’s Q4 so let’s get on with it.

  2. Beware of FOMO & Vanity Metrics 9/23/2024

    Nothing destroys a well-planned and adequately resourced B2B marketing strategy like a big emotional dose of FOMO and the uncontrollable urge to chase vanity metrics. 

  3. Put Some Icing On Your Marketing (Cake) Plan! 9/16/2024

    Icing is a big attention-getter when it comes to cakes. Who doesn’t enjoy scanning all those cakes in the bakery showcase? And the icing is often the initial differentiator. Consider the icing to be the paid media part of your marketing plan.

  4. What Have You Baked Into Your Marketing Plan? 9/8/2024

    Developing an annual marketing plan is like baking a cake! Once you get all the ingredients in place, including all the resources and budget, and begin executing, it’s hard to undo. Imagine going back to the CFO for more budget because you left out some key ingredients.

  5. Before You Begin Planning For Next Year, Look At How Things Went This Year? 9/3/2024

    This is the time of year when most businesses, and their marketing and sales teams, begin planning for next year. Before jumping into your planning process, it’s a good idea to closely examine what you’ve accomplished this year.

  6. Begin Planning With The End In Mind 8/27/2024

    This week we’ll close out the last full month of summer. That’s right, it’s best to accept the truth, order yourself a pumpkin spice latte during your next Starbucks stop, and start thinking about your marketing and sales plans for 2025.

  7. How Deep Is Your Personal Development? 8/19/2024

    What are you doing to grow and how serious are you? You may consume professional journals, read professional and personal development books and perhaps adopt new hobbies. But how deep are you going?

  8. Capturing Your Target Audience's Attention! 8/12/2024

    You have several seconds to capture the attention of your target audience before they move on to something else. What can you do about it?

  9. Should Your Messaging Appeal To Your Target Audiences' Fears Or Opportunities? 8/5/2024

    Our fears are rooted in our survival DNA and messages that appeal to our fears “get our attention.”

  10. So You're Building Awareness, But Of What? 7/29/2024

    I’ve lost count of the companies who have told me the objective of their marketing campaigns is to build awareness. Using “awareness” to describe marketing is as inevitable as the US female gymnastics team having a group hug after Simone Biles’ floor routine. But my question is always, awareness of what?