Category: Marketing

  • The amazing windup salesperson!

    The amazing windup salesperson! I had the pleasure and privilege to speak at Multifamily Pros’ Optimization Summit this past week and talk about email marketing in the modern age (click here to watch the recorded version). One thing that hasn’t modernized, however, is that new sales folks still aren’t getting trained to be effective sales…

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  • Game mechanics for non-profits

    A while ago on Marketing Over Coffee and other places we discussed the SCVNGR game mechanics deck, a deck of cards with different mechanisms that stimulate human behavioral patterns. While marketers are more than happy to jump all over these methods, it’s well worth considering for marketing more useful things, like non-profit donations. Let’s take…

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  • My 3 takeaways on Google Instant

    Google Instant launched today. It’s rolling out to a Google web search box near you, very soon. If you missed the memo, it goes a bit like this: Google shows results as you type now, in real-time. If your account has it, try it out. Here’s a few thoughts as I was watching the press…

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  • The practical summary of Latent Dirichlet Allocation for SEO

    What’s the hottest trend in search engine optimization that you’ve never heard of (yet)? The folks over at SEOmoz have been doing a great series on Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), which is a context-based algorithm for determining search relevance. Their research has shown strong correlation between LDA and search rankings. However, it’s little things like…

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  • Do you care if the shelves in your store have more stuff?

    One of the students in the course I teach on Advanced Social Media asked how in the world we are all expected to manage the tremendous number of services, tools, tactics, and ideas in social media. Various lists float around the Internet from supposed social media experts of the hundreds of different tools out there.…

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  • Corrupting words

    Once upon a time, the word gourmet conjured up sumptuous, rich foods of the highest quality: It was something we desired, something we sought after, something we aspired to. Then someone’s marketing department got a hold of the word and corrupted it beyond recognition into this sad joke: Once upon a time, there were a…

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  • Are you hiring a social media strategist?

    Are you looking to hire a social media strategist? Take your social media strategist job description and replace the words social media with military. Think about that for a second. How silly would it look for the US Army to advertise for the position of Field Commander by saying: Wanted: someone who can talk a…

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  • Draw this

    Get out a sheet of paper, totally blank. Go sit by yourself somewhere, no technology anywhere nearby. Now remember the most important visual marketing campaign you did this year so far. Maybe it was a flyer. Maybe it was an email campaign. Maybe it was a new web site design or redesign. Draw it from…

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  • Beware of weak correlative scores

    In the World of Warcraft, there exists one number that can make or break your day, depending on who you’re interacting with: GearScore. GearScore is a mathematical formula that tries to rank players based on what equipment their character has, on the assumption that harder to get equipment means you’re a better player for having…

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  • Studies in contrast

    Studies in contrast Have you ever gone grape picking? It’s an interesting experience – you look for ripe grapes and pick them. Sounds simple, but if you’ve ever gone picking, you know the danger of diminishing contrasts. Here’s what I mean: pick the ripest grapes off of the vine. Keep looking at the vine and…

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