Summary: This article questions conventional marketing wisdom, arguing that every campaign might not have to have hyped, benefits-focused messaging with an urgent call to action. Maybe the market needs different messages at different times. The temptation to marketing apostasy started when I heard Mark Stiving talk about features vs. benefits. It’s relatively standard these days…
Summary: The old saying “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” is misleading. Repetition can be the key to success. You’ve heard it many times: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” The saying is often…
Summary: This popular headline format works because it pushes some of the right psychological buttons, but the damage to the brand might not be worth it. I’m sure you’ve seen headlines like this. “I’m a bartender. Please stop mixing bourbon with Italian bitters.” Or “I’m a swim coach, please stop kicking from your knees.” That…
Summary: The marketing funnel and the customer journey map are two useful mental models for understanding how your customers interact with your marketing efforts. They both have their strengths and weaknesses. You’ve seen many versions of the marketing funnel. Some of them are simply conceptual and don’t have any numbers attached to them. There might…
Summary: Water might get into a bathtub in many different ways, but it all goes out through the drain. This is analogous to your marketing efforts. You might “fill the tub” with several different types of marketing efforts, but they might all lead to one drain — or one “last touch point.” If you look…
Summary: Two-thirds of PR and marketing professionals struggle to demonstrate the impact of their work, suggesting a need for better utilization of measurement tools. However, it’s hard to quantify the effect of some marketing, like brand presence at industry events. The article warns against the potential pitfalls of relying solely on measurable outcomes, advocating for…
Summary: Martha Marchesi recommends four New Year’s resolutions for B2B marketers. The first is to embrace AI, with a nod to tools like Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Midjourney. The second suggests leveraging influencers, met with skepticism but acknowledged as potentially valuable. The third is to incorporate more human touch through short-form videos, though the writer is…
Summary: From a research study by Allegra and Ascend2 about the resurgence of print in marketing — contrary to the belief that print is obsolete, 58% of marketers plan to increase their use of printed materials. While brochures and flyers are most popular, high costs and a preference for digital channels are barriers. However, print…
Summary: The article emphasizes the importance of investigating “edge cases” in marketing. While marketers usually focus on major factors, unexpected scenarios (edge cases) can be crucial. Examples include unexpected customer behavior, actions in unplanned environments, or changes in regulations. The article highlights instances where “edge case” is used as an excuse or when it represents…
There’s this thing called “last-click attribution” where you assign a sale to the last click a person takes before the purchase. If you think about your own buying behavior, you’ll quickly realize that model probably only works for a very small percentage of your purchases, and that it gets less and less valuable as the…
Yesterday I saw a post on LinkedIn about the success of Barstool Sports, with 5 lessons for B2B marketers. It raised some good points, which I’ll mention in a minute. But before I get to that I want to mention a strange experience I had yesterday. My site runs on WordPress, and some of my…
Sorry to be philosophical for a moment here, but it fits today’s topic. Human society needs two impulses: protection and exploration. Somebody needs to explore the great unknown, try the new food, make friends with the weird tribe on the other side of the river, and somebody needs to make sure we don’t burn the…
Bob Hoffman thinks it’s a marketer’s delusion to believe that anybody wants to interact with your brand. I tend to agree with him. But my friends Lev Kaye and Leslie Laredo believe there are some situations where interaction is appropriate. How do you decide when? That’s the point of The Krehbiel Brand Involvement Matrix. It’s…
The typical sales funnel of awareness > consideration > purchase doesn’t go deep enough for publishers. There are several more steps in the journey, and different tools and methods are appropriate for each phase. The following chart can help you get started. Create goals and methods for each of these ten steps in your customer’s…
On Friday, Bo Sacks distributed Cosmin Ene’s article, “Subscription Cannibalization is here. Just not as you think.” Cannibalization is, of course, eating your own. Publishers often use that word to describe when a new, low-priced product undercuts the sales of an older, higher-priced product. As a general rule, I think fear of cannibalization is misguided….