Content, Strategy, Marketing & Business | A consultant’s view » Christine Thompson
When you’re competing for attention, production quality matters; it can help your content stand out in an over-crowded media environment. Of course, you can’t forget the basics: your story must be interesting and well crafted; your message should have intrinsic appeal for its intended audience. Without that, why “put lipstick on a pig?” Although the notion […]
Marketing Transformation Like many traditional or industrial age enterprises, until recently GE had no strategic marketing function to speak of. Leaders tended to believe that GE products would sell themselves, so marketers were relegated to sales support or marcom functions. The CMO role did not exist (until recently). Skeptics didn’t believe that marketing could make […]
Revised on September 28, 2010
Businesses can stumble badly in their financial projections if they over-estimate customer adoption rates. And if you work in product marketing or sales environments where everyone must “drink the Kool-Aid,” you’re potentially at risk, especially in B2B markets.
In consumer markets, where the decision maker and the end-user are often the same person, motivational issues are less likely to affect post-sale adoption rates (unless the product is a “lemon”). Here’s why.
Revised on June 4, 2010
Lately I’ve been coaching some entrepreneurs as they prepare their investor pitch to prospective angel investors. One of the recurring challenges with their draft pitch is a lack of clarity on a number of key factors, such as:
Revised on June 4, 2010
Thanks to the Altimeter Group and Web Analytics Demystified, we now have a framework for deciding how to measure progress with social media marketing — a draft model that’s worth talking about. The framework has many merits, but also limitations, especially for start-ups or entities in the early phase of their life cycle, before there’s much conversation about them online.
Revised on June 4, 2010
Most of the tactics based on SEM and SEO aim at capturing the attention of shoppers engaged in active discovery. Which is cool, if people already know your brand, are aware of your current offers, and generally understand your brand promise or core value proposition. (In this context we’re talking about the buyer’s activities during the earlier phases of the marketing funnel.)
But what do marketers do if people are unaware of or unfamiliar with your brand? Or if you’re confronting damaging misperceptions about your product’s positioning, core benefits, price-to-value equation, etc.? Search alone is not enough.
Revised on March 28, 2011
I’ve always loved David Armano’s thoughtful irreverence, his clear infographics, and the ways he helps us think about or reframe core issues in the worlds of marketing, media, community and communications. After stumbling across his wry “wheel of marketing misfortune,” for a recent presentation to a Chicago AMA event, I just had to share it here.
Revised on June 4, 2010
Lately I’ve been struck by the messy, unintended consequences of the wrenching changes that the practice of marketing is going through. One such consequence is how hard it has become to get a big picture view of what’s going on in the marketplace, where your best opportunities might lie — whatever market your business or […]
Revised on June 4, 2010
Lately I’ve been struck by how we marketers may be losing our way, overlooking our core mission. Preoccupied with wrenching changes in how we launch products, retool the marketing mix, and engage influencers and stakeholders, it’s easy to overlook our core mission: understanding customers. How we apply what we understand about customers is what drives the marketing (and sales) engine.
Revised on June 4, 2010
During today’s presentation to the Seattle Social Media Club, Sean O’Driscoll, community builder and influencer marketing expert, revealed how he answers the inevitable questions about the ROI on social media and influencer marketing programs. He held up a phone and rhetorically asked, “How do you measure the ROI on your telephones?” Translation: it’s the conversations […]
