Sometimes you hear something and think, "I heard that five years ago. Ten years ago. How is that still a problem?" Now, I’m not talking about global warming or peace in the Middle East. No, I’m in marketing world here, and specifically, talking about the old saw “sell solutions, not products.” Marketers have been told to focus on solutions countless times. So why are marketers are still focusing on product? We marketers are human, after all, and the problem with adages like this is that … [Read more...]
Archives for February 2016
Content First, Not Campaign First: Four Steps to Make Sure You Don’t Fall into the Empty Campaign Trap
I was speaking to a colleague recently who expressed a common lament. She had launched a beautiful looking marketing campaign three months prior, and it wasn't working. Nobody was clicking. It looked great. It was running in the right places, and she couldn't understand what was happening. I had seen this before, so, channeling Click and Clack from Car Talk , I asked her one more question to confirm what I suspected her problem was. "How did you come up with the campaign?" I asked. Here it … [Read more...]
Organic Traffic Isn’t Free: How to Dispel this Common Misconception
I was in a meeting recently with a web design agency. We were discussing a new site, and how we would be generating leads, when he made the following comment, “Of course, you want to get lots of that free organic traffic.” I thought to myself, I'm not going to hire this guy. He has no idea what he's talking about. Why did I think that? Because SEO is not a one time, set-it-and-forget-it operation. Growing organic traffic takes a lot of work. Lots of staff and agency time. That costs money. It … [Read more...]
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