To capture more attention, some advertisers are adding a third dimension to their billboards.
Maybe you’ve seen the Chick Fil-A billboards featuring three-dimensional cows that paint the words “Eat Mor Chikin” on the billboard. They are charming, memorable, and almost impossible to miss. Read more…
You know there’s more business out there somewhere…if you could just find it. You know there are opportunities you may be missing. You know you should be working on your marketing all the time.
So let’s start the year off with some New Year’s Marketing Resolutions. Here they are: Read more…
Great actors share the spotlight.
But if you’re running an ad in a newspaper or magazine, you want to hog the spotlight. The aim is to get as many eyes as possible going directly to your ad-rather than going to whatever else is on the page. Read more…
Your business doesn’t exist because you have something to sell.
Your business exists because someone has a problem.
Fred Wiersema of Harvard Business School, author of Customer Intimacy(), said that the basic requirement for doing marketing is to understand the customer’s problem and its solution from the customer’s point of view.
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You can find all kinds of opinions and “rules” about what it takes to make your advertising work—and they certainly have their place.
But in the final analysis, the rules don’t matter much if you’re not saying anything that really connects with readers. Read more…
“I have seen one advertisement actually sell 19 ½ times as much goods as another.” So wrote John Caples in his classic book, Tested Advertising Methods.(
But what do you have to do to get results like these? What kind of headline, pictures and copy should you use? Finding out these things is difficult, says Caples. “It is easy to get opinions on these questions. It is hard to get facts.” Read more…
Last week I talked about how easy it is to kill good ideas.
But where do you find good ideas? Here’s one place: look for a metaphor.
When I was in Greece, I saw trucks from a moving company named Metaphor, which, in Greek, means “to carry over.” A metaphor is an apt communication tool because it “carries over” the meaning of an idea, making it more vivid and colorful. Read more…
“A committee is where good ideas go to die.”
I don’t know who said it, but I’ve got 30 years of experience that says “amen!” to it.
And since the success of your marketing depends on good ideas, it’s important to be aware of the quicksand dangers that the committee process poses to creative thinking. Read more…
I’ve never liked listening to gripes. When my kids were young and would start griping about something, I would tell them, “You’re only allowed to gripe in duck language.” Then I would illustrate, “Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack.”
Corny, I know. But it made the point, while breaking the tension.
But as a marketer, I’ve learned how important it is to listen to what customers are griping about, and to empathize with and even key in on those gripes. Read more…
The book What Would Google Do? tells an important story about Dell Computers. () A customer had written a venomously critical review online, shredding Dell’s products and service. ()
Naturally, this triggered a lot of defensiveness among Dell employees, who are justifiably proud of their company and their products. There was much discussion about how to respond. Read more…
