“Quite possibly the only person on LinkedIn who isn’t a results-oriented team player with excellent interpersonal skills”. It was a brilliant line. Several years ago, a guy called Gordon Rae posted it as his LinkedIn professional headline – the words that come under your name right at the top of your profile, and that appear…
Imagine you had an appointment with a great new lead. This is a hot prospect, and you’re hoping to come away with a big fat contract. You turn up for the presentation, open PowerPoint, and….. Start to walk them through every job you’ve ever held. You throw in a few key-skill clichés along the way…
A few weeks ago, a client shared a very powerful story with me. Before launching their current healthcare business, this client ran a successful clinic helping people shed significant amounts of weight through gastric bands. In order to attract relevant traffic to his site, he ran an online forum for people to air their concerns…
“Know your competition.” It’s one of the golden rules of marketing. And it’s sound advice. You wouldn’t launch a business without carefully surveying the marketplace first, to figure out the opportunities and threats (I hope). The same goes for your marketing. But there’s a danger in looking too closely at your competition, too. You can…
“What books do you recommend in order to improve our company’s online marketing?” I was asked that recently…. And I think that the person asking the question was rather taken back with my answer. They thought they were going to get a list of some of the summer’s “hot” online marketing books, written by…
It’s the ad break on your favourite television show. Up pops an image of a man at a supermarket till, who’s just finished his shop. “And how will you be paying, sir?” asks the cashier. “By credit card!” he answers. The camera zooms in to the plastic card he holds up. “It’s as good…
How often should you email your list? When companies launch a new email marketing campaign, this is often something they get nervous about. They seem to think that there’s an optimum frequency, and that if they get it wrong, their marketing will go down the drain. I blame all those Internet memes and blog posts,…
“I never thought I’d find myself engrossed in a book about web design!” I was talking to a client who had been thinking about having his website re-done. He’d downloaded the ebook because he thought it just might give him some background into the latest trends, but wasn’t anywhere near ready to appoint a…
In my last two posts we’ve talked about why your company needs a ‘Value ladder’ – and what other companies’ value ladders look like. But if you don’t have one, how do you get started? I think it’s important to acknowledge that most companies probably have bits and pieces of their value ladder already…
“The last thing we want to do is annoy people with too many emails.” I was speaking to the CEO of a healthcare company with over 6,000 email addresses on their database. They were desperate to market themselves better, and wanted to talk about all kinds of options: Social media, direct mail, LinkedIn advertising. But…
