A website used to be a very complex, technical affair in the old days. Today, with WordPress, it’s relatively simple to build one. In the previous post, we set up the foundation for the website; in this post we will explore the content of the website. Purpose The purpose of a website is to attract…
So far, we’ve identified what our unique product is, and what banking, transaction processing, and storefront options we have. Let’s now dig into what you’ll need from a marketing perspective, both strategy and tactics. Marketing Strategy I define marketing strategy as deciding what goals we want to achieve, what methods and tools we’ll use to…
Once we know what we’re going to sell, we have to set up the tools needed to actually sell things. Setting up a home-based business for kids isn’t just a matter of slapping up a page on Etsy. To do it right and prepare it for scale, we’ll need to do a little planning around…
No amount of marketing will save a bad product; many businesses have tested this cliche and found it true, to their dismay. Before we do anything else, we have to ask: does anyone want the product we plan to make? As a parent, nearly everything my child makes is great – to me. One of…
Few things teach us the value of money like not having enough. For good or ill, many of the experiences we have in life are governed by two primary resources: time and money. Parents strive to teach their children the value of both. As a parent myself, I want my kids to grow up understanding…
I recently had a discussion with one of my SHIFT colleagues about sympathy and empathy. We often conflate the meaning of these two words, but in practice, they separate (but related) concepts. Sympathy translates from Greek as “with feeling”. Empathy translates from Greek as “in feeling”. Both words share the root pathos, which originally meant…
Google’s annual developer conference, IO16, revealed a number of new products and services. At the IO16 keynote, Google revealed the new technologies it’s bringing to market, from VR to AI. What’s in it for marketers? What must marketing technologists take advantage of? Daydream Daydream is Google’s new VR platform, encompassing a hardware standard for manufacturers…
One of the questions social media practitioners ask most often is, “What links/content should I re-share more frequently?” We have so many choices before us. How do we decide? Prerequisites: Goal Values Before we assess which links to share, we need to know what business goal we’re seeking. I seek revenue. As a small business…
In this series, we’re examining the underpinnings, the infrastructure that gives rise to marketing technology. Today, we wrap up with a look at where we’ve been and what you should do next. Choosing a Platform As we explored, each of the three major providers of marketing technology infrastructure offers different solutions, depending on where we…
