Archive for April 2017
4 Ways to Manage Negative Feedback in a Positive Way
As marketers we often face rejection and negativity. An idea is shot down. An angry reader rants in a comment. A prospect chooses a competitor’s product. We can’t help but feel a bit of a sting when someone spits on our hard work. How do we stay strong and steadfast in our commitment to succeeding…
Read MoreAre you using the right kind of marketing for your business?
Many small business owners make the mistake of using the wrong type of marketing for their business. For example, did you know there is a huge difference between Internet marketing sites and marketing sites? Well, there is. If you’re using ideas from the wrong type of site, you’re wasting your time and your money. As…
Read MoreMarketing Automation: Batteries Not Included
The sales pitch for investing in marketing-automation software is hard to resist. It goes something like this: “Our software will help you generate leads and then automatically nurture them along their journeys until they become your customers.” It sounds wonderful – a happy prospect skipping along a path paved by magical software. Every business is…
Read MoreNew Way to Build Personas Over Time
SPONSORED BY CENTERLINE Centerline’s chief strategy officer John Lane is on a mission to change the way that we think about our personas. Instead of investing a disproportionate amount of time up front creating a perfect persona that you never revise, he recommends adopting an iterative approach. I asked him more about how this approach…
Read More5 Questions to Ask Your Customer Support Team to Help Build Buyer Personas
If you’re creating customer personas or adding more depth to existing personas, it’s important to involve people in the organization outside of just marketing or sales. One approach I’ve used successfully is to ask the customer support team for help. Their daily interactions — and direct contact with customers — provide information that will help…
Read MoreMore marketing ideas. Yours right now, for free
I have some exciting news to share with you! You can now access more, free marketing ideas from me and also get a behind the scenes look into my world and how I work. I have recently revamped my Facebook Page and will be adding fresh content to it regularly. You can join me now,…
Read MoreHow to Stop Overthinking Your Content and Start Writing What Your Customers Love
You might find it hard to believe, but content doesn’t have to be game-changing to perform well and achieve its objectives. In my experience, a lot of marketers are fixated on creating that “perfect” piece of content. They tell themselves they won’t settle for anything less, but the reality is that what they wind up…
Read MoreHow to crush the competition
Joe emailed me with a very direct and important question yesterday. Here it is, along with my answer. Hi Jim. What’s the best way for me to crush my competitors? I’m going to lose my business soon unless I turn things around and I’m sick of losing out to competitors that are no better than…
Read MoreGoing Potty for Facebook: How a Toilet Paper Brand Won Social
Regular readers know I can be a tad disparaging of a lot of Facebook marketing. It’s not that Facebook is lacking as a content platform – far from it. My cynicism derives more from the low-quality content and threadbare strategies I see every day in my newsfeed or, more often, in groups dedicated to ridiculing…
Read MoreYour choice: Act now or react later?
Imagine this: Imagine a business, which provides a unique range of services, rather than the same generic range of services as it’s competitors. Imagine a business, which invests time every week on improving itself. Imagine a business, which has a dedicated customer retention program, so that it seldom loses a client or customer. Imagine a…
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