When you identify your enemy, you give everyone inside and outside your company a shorthand by which to understand and describe who you are, your values and what you probably do. Think about it: Your enemy: termites. Your organization: pest control Your enemy: the confusion of the tax code. Your organization: tax prep. Your enemy: Read More
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No Brand Can Be Everything
Brands fail when they try to be everything. And even though we can easily tell the difference between brands that know who they are and brands that don’t, developing your own brand can seem random and uncontrolled. Let’s see if we can arrive at some clarity. “The World Needs You As You Are.” And it Read More
4 Practical Steps for Delegating Content Strategy
Every company needs a media plan to coordinate your efforts and reduce wasted motion. And if you have a budget and no time, it might be time to delegate your media planning. But how? We’re gonna talk about exactly how to delegate your content planning, grow one of your staff and get success while you Read More
Kill Budget Vagueness in 5 Steps
It’s always the stupid stuff that stalls progress, especially when you’re managing the creation of a new media plan from scratch. And one of the quickest ways to cross wires with your team is to leave the budget area ambiguous. Without your decision in this area, your team will struggle. You’re not the only one Read More
The 4 Essential Truths of Content Strategy
Some plans are just wishes. Other plans define the task and the purpose, pointing the team’s individual work into a coordinated effort. This post will tell you about the process of content strategy, a process that will bring your internal knowledge and genius out to the world, in an effective and coordinated effort. Everyone loves Read More
Protip: Pretest Your Brief
The creative brief tells anyone touching or reviewing the piece—whether it’s a blog post or set of social media posts—exactly what the piece is supposed to do. So how do you pretest its effectiveness? Find out if it inspires your creatives. “What is it we’re selling, who’s it for, and why does it matter to Read More
The One-Page That Will Focus Your Content
Much of the unfocused marketing crap we see in the world comes from a lack of focus and discipline. This post is about a document that will change all that, creating a sharp focus for all of your messaging. It’s called the creative brief, and it’s been used to devastating effect in the famous “Got Read More
Protip: Close Your Laptop and Think
How to discipline your research: avoid bottom-up thinking. Bottom-up thinking, in research, puts you at the mercy of the information you’re seeking. It might mean looking on the internet for insights related to your goal, but with no clear question. Without that question, you end up down rabbit trails that waste your time. A top-down Read More
Building Creative Strategy: Researching Connection
“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.” – Zora Neale Hurston There is science in connection with your audience. After you’ve completed steps 1: the SWOT analysis and 2: Maslow’s Pyramid, you now know the benefit you want to convey to your audience. Now, it’s time to find out how Read More
Protip: A Simple Test of Relevance
You are most relevant when you’re in your audience’s story. So how do you know which kind of story you’re telling? I other words, is it about me, my customer, or about something we all believe is bigger? The simple test is in how it fits into a sentence. Attribute: “Our product has x.” Example: Read More
