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
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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
Five Steps to UX-Proof Your Website: Part 5 Sitemap and Navigation
We’ve all been to websites with triple dropdown navigation menus, extensive lists of blue hyperlinks in a sidebar, and overcrowded headers full of items. We’ve all left a lot of those websites, too. Clear and thoughtful navigation promotes lead generation, customer conversions, and SEO. Bad navigation confuses and overwhelms your users, and increases your bounce Read More
Brand Strategy 2: Maslow’s Marketing Pyramid
Effective storytelling means conveying relevant brand truths to your audience by telling a story about them. So how do you tell the right story? In Part Two of our strategy series, we define the three levels of story and how to find the right story type for you. With the right story type, you can Read More
Five Steps to UX-Proof Your Website: Chart the Tasks
A crucial part of user-focused design is eliminating pain points. We go through the process of creating detailed personas so that we can streamline our design and content to fit their individual context. Good personas include webographic information such as device, expertise, and preferred websites, so we better know how to design an interaction that feels Read More
Building Creative Strategy: The SWOT
Businesses are famous for believing lies about themselves. The SWOT analysis, rigorously done, will serve to disabuse you of misconceptions that could be costing you money and opportunity. How do businesses deceive themselves? By using bad data (they don’t always talk to customer, and when they do, they often don’t ask the right questions) and Read More
SEO For Marketing Managers with More Brains than Budget
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) sits at the heart of inbound marketing. As a manager, you only want to invest so much time in the details of SEO. Yet, you still want to be able to educate other leaders on it and have a sensible conversation with an SEO specialist when the situation arises. This article Read More
How to Do Inbound Without Being a D-bag
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last 5 years, you’ve watched the shift in marketing toward “inbound.” You’ve probably been around for the soapbox preachers screaming, “CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT!” Maybe you’ve subscribed to the Hubspot (aka inbound King) newsletter. To me, it’s starting to feel like a frenzy. 45% of marketers say Read More
3 Pre-event Strategies for Boosting Trade Show Success
Let’s play Mad Libs! Exhibiting at trade shows is __(adjective)___. Whatever word popped into your head was likely rooted in an emotion. Maybe it was positive, maybe it was negative. Either way, you probably have a strong opinion when it comes to exhibiting at trade shows. If you’ve had great success on the trade show floor, you Read More
The Right Words for Your Website
*scroll* “The 2017 bob-length haircut… Six ways to make a mason jar salad….23 Words or Phrases to Eliminate from Your Marketing Today… Wait, words to eliminate? I’ll bet I use more than half of these…unless it’s all buzzwords. I’d better make sure.” *click* Well, one thing’s for sure…Pinterest knows me too well. Also, Global English Read More
