I attended the first ever SF Agile Marketing meetup the other night to learn about this new concept in marketing. Listened to Kirstin Falk, President @redbricksmedia, Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, CMO @mindjet and Paul Willard, CMO @atlassian share how they are using Agile Marketing in there organizations. Read more…
All posts in Marketing Strategy
I love Simon Sinek, but ….
… I fear some entrepreneurs are missing the boat on his “Getting to Why” message. In his popular Tedx Talk, Simon explains his philosophy of starting with Why, then explain How, and finally give the What. He gives the example of the inspired way Apple Computers presents itself to the world. Read more…
Learning how to pitch from Science Fair Teens
Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time at Tech Meetups in SF and the Silicon Valley and I’ve met lots of tech founders who really struggle with how to describe themselves. On my drive home from a meeting with several folks with particularly confusing elevator pitches last week, my faith in was rekindle while listening to Science Friday
program featuring young science fair winners ranging from age 10 to 20. Read more…
A brand is much more than a logo and hiring a “branding agency” only gets you half-way there.Often you need a team of designers, writers, attorneys, etc. to make sure you have a everything in place to launch your brand. You need to manage the big picture. Here are the minimum 8 things I believe you need to launch your brand. Read more…
… are you sure they’re going to come? (final installment)
So you’ve got the right product and merchandising strategy, now you’ve got to figure out how to get it on the shelves. Here are four of the most common ways to do so: Read more…
… are you sure they’re going to come? (continued from last week)
Last week I wrote about how to design your product to stand out in a store. That’s the easy part. But once you’ve developed your product, the next step is convincing buyers to carry it. Unfortunately there are tons of barriers to entry if you’re the new kid on the block. Not only do you have the challenge of identifying who the buyer is, but then you need to convince them to take on your product. Read more…
… are you sure they’re going to come? (continued from last week)
As I mentioned in last week’s blog, you can’t really rely on web sales to make your product-based business profitable. You need to consider retail channels, which is easier said than done. After they realize that 100% web-strategy may not work, many entrepreneurs think: Read more…
… are you sure they’re going to come?
Remember the end of Field of Dreams with all the cars lined up to come watch the baseball game. You just knew the Kinsella family would make lots of money selling lemonade and hotdogs to these folks and the farm would be saved. While most of us rooted for Ray and his crazy dream throughout the film, in real life we’d probably agree with Annie that he was going insane. Read more…
This past week I’ve been getting lots of emails in my in-box from major retailers with subject lines such as “Sneak Peek at our Black Friday Ad + Start Shopping Online Thanksgiving Day”. In effect, what they’re saying is:
Dear Customers:
Please join us for a special shopping day on Friday – the day that our company finally turns a profit. As you may know, for most of the year we retailers and our suppliers bide our time operating in the red until Read more…
While many large corporations have teams of people dedicated to project management, quite often small-businesses and start-ups just wing it as they try to build new products, systems, and marketing programs. No matter how big you are, planning should most important phase of any project. Read more…