Long-time media experts I know and respect will disagree with me on this one, but I’d like to make the case for ditching the word “magazine” for your digital product. Publishing has been going through a long transformation in which print products have been converted into something like a digital equivalent. This has created the…
As discussed in collecting emails isn’t enough, email address is most likely the best way to merge your customer data from disparate systems. Although mobile phone number is a close second. But there are challenges. Most people have more than one email address, and most companies collect email addresses in lots of different ways —…
“Amazon can do it. Why can’t you?” Do you wonder if your customers think that? I don’t. I’m fairly sure they think it all the time. We all live under the shadow of the technical excellence of Amazon. They’ve spoiled people with incredible service, and the rest of us struggle to catch up. Part of…
How do you make your online meeting or program so engaging and useful that attendees readily participate, and can’t wait for the next one? In this article I’ll outline a few techniques I’ve learned from my own experience, then I’ll turn the floor over to Leslie Laredo, President of Laredo Group and its training division,…
Do people who "convert" on your website, however you define that, view more than one page before they take action? If so, you have an attribution problem — that is, you don't know which page to credit for the conversion. If it's just two pages, and everyone gets to the first page the same way,…
Last week I had the pleasure of spending a few minutes with Jacqui Cooper, a bit of a Renaissance woman who lives in the next town. Jacqui is a lawyer, an educator and an entrepreneur who also likes to travel. She has a lot of interests and believes in a diversified revenue stream! In this…
There’s a hidden opportunity in vendor negotiations you might be missing, making your tech evaluations longer and more costly than they need to be. Below I’ll explore five reasons a vendor might say no to a client, and how both the client and the vendor can turn that to an advantage. The trick is both…
I had an interesting conversation with a friend about the unique challenge of supervising a very smart person. My friend asked for my advice, so I did a little research and I did a little thinking, and since I’ve been a lifelong fan of Sherlock Holmes (and have recently been listening to Stephen Fry’s incredible…
On the first day of COVID my true love gave me to me, a fever of one hundred and three. On the second day of COVID my true love gave to me, two weeks of cloister and a fever of one hundred and three. On the third day of COVID my true love gave to…
It’s the time of the year for 2021 predictions. Most of them will be wrong. But is there a way to profit from them anyway? I believe so. Think with me through a few of my own predictions, and I think we’ll uncover a method that can help you prosper from all predictions, whether they’re…
Last month I got an email to this general effect: “we notice you haven’t been responding. We won’t email you as often from now on.” Is that the right thing to do? I’ve seen other efforts like this that give you a chance to re-engage before the sender takes you off their list. The reasoning…
You know the future of your business involves data, and you want to invest in the right technologies to stay in the game … and win. But technology won’t solve the problem without this “magical” secret. The brief article below can get you started on that process. Governance: the boring but essential part of your…
Summarize decisions in post-meeting emails Have you been in a meeting where everyone seems to have forgotten the consensus you thought you'd won last month? Of course you have. End your meetings with an explicit statement of the decisions you've made, and follow up the meeting with an email to all attendees memorializing those decisions….
I was speaking recently with a publishing colleague who sends his paid newsletter content to his subscribers as a PDF attached to an email. He has a big problem with some subscribers forwarding this subscriber-only content to non-subscribers. I’ve heard experienced publishers react to this sort of story very differently. Some will say, “Yay! Free…
The marketing technology stack is accumulating more and more products that claim to have artificial intelligence. What does that mean, and should you care? How can AI help your business? At this stage of the game, I think there are three important things to focus on. There is simply too much data out there for…