Critical thinking is not how to think, as it’s most commonly described, but what to think, or more to the point – how to choose what to think about? This is, for me at least, the key takeaway from the famous “Water Speech” by David Foster Wallace. I think that DFW posits that awareness, in …
If you don’t have a conversion optimization strategy for SEO, SEO has become even more ineffectual than ever before. That’s the takeaway from a piece Rand Fishkin has published what I think you could call a ground-breaking big data analysis. It has allowed Rand to once again take Google to task for selling out the …
In his book Peak, Anders Ericcson talks about developing expertise (tho he focuses on “expert performance”) in unregulated, if you will, artistic or professional disciplines. He cites traditions such as the violin, piano, and chess, as being highly standardized and regulated – it is well documented how to inculcate expertise in those fields. He …
Great subject, dangerous question. Answer is no. SaaS companies need one person responsible for all messaging. That includes messaging used in the product UX and in marketing materials such as the company website and advertisements. Designing your product and designing the marketing around it should come out of the same continuous ideation process. There is …
Continue reading “Do SaaS companies need both copywriters and UX writers?”
Let’s stop afterthoughting software training, because it scales better than code I tried using Superhuman, a recently PR-blitzed (Google it up against date of this article) Silicon Valley enterprise designed for people who live in their inbox. It costs $30/month. Maybe that’s worth it, but I tried the free version of Superhuman, which is called “Gmail”, …
How do you figure out how to design your product, market it, sell it, and constantly improve on it. In other words, how do you ideate? Research. The bedrock of ideation. So two days ago, I wrote about conducting research and the magical number 30 as a sample size. Then yesterday I wrote about “think …
Relentlessly, I reassure my software industry clients that I have a tech background despite headlining my consulting business with dreaded marketing. In fact, the other day when I asked a client for access to their dev site, and they linked me to a github repository, wherein lived a roll-your-own CMS built in Jango… I almost …
Here’s a funny idea – doing anything meaningful without some kind of research. There is no ideation without research. As a UX designer, technology consultant, and digital marketer for two decades, it occurs to me that good ideas come ONLY from research. So it’s not just for the marketing department, which is an important thing …
You probably shouldn’t try to boil down everything in life to a checklist. But checklists are comforting. They answer the question, “what are the essential things I must do?”. Last week at an event in New York City, I gave a talk that ended up, ultimately, being a checklist – a checklist for how to …
Have you ever wondered while reading something, “Who wrote this, anyway”? Well, Google is wondering the same thing. And they want an answer. So, while the battle between literate, well-written web copy and SEO rages on, just a word of advice: associate yourself with your content as its author. Writing compelling, detailed content without cultivating equally …
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Is it normal to automate the words you choose? For humans, I mean. I saw these robots pictured above many years ago at the 2002 Whitney Biennial and never thought I’d be writing a blog post about them 16 years later. I guess artists (Ken Feingold) have a funny way of predicting the future, because …
Continue reading “Is AI-enhanced communication an enhancement? 3 Examples to think about”
A while back, I wrote that copywriting is 20% UX design. (By the way, UX design is a fancy way of saying “layout for digital interfaces.)” Benjamin Franklin knew this and co-wrote and designed a Declaration of Independence with – for his day – ample whitespace. His declaration was not just a transactional document; it was meant …
Continue reading “Upside down homepage and other lead generation UX design patterns”
When you enter a group of people unknown to you, do you introduce yourself, or wait to be approached? Unless one of you is Barack Obama is subscribed to my email list under a pseudonym, you probably introduce yourself. Because who are you, Barack Obama? By that I mean – who are you, someone well …
Can I become a successful artist by delegating content creation? Is your art itself not content? Would you delegate the creation of the art, like the old Masters did, and Jeff Koons does now? Maybe so, but you would set the strategic direction, and decide when the work is finished, otherwise the whole thing is …
Five things on my mind this week: 1. Book I’m reading Principles, by Ray Dalio, which I touched on briefly the other day. His approach to life and business, which has led to the creation of the world’s largest hedge fund, is “a game”. The game consists of failing repeatedly, then being presented with a …
Continue reading “Five More Things: Principles, Jargon, Campaigns, Pricing, and Meditation”
When does “first sight” happen in business? Sometimes it happens we “do” outbound lead generation. Sometimes it happens naturally in the context of inbound marketing. There’s lead generation and there’s lead generation. In fact, there are dozens of methods of lead generation, for thousands of business models. I don’t know about all of them. I …
First of all, let’s get something clear: I’m a “dumb shit”. These words of modesty come from Ray Dalio, self-made (unlike Trump) billionaire hedge fund entrepreneur. They are the opening lines of his the dual-volume Principles (of Life and of Work), which I am reading this week and finding fascinating. Despite his modesty, Ray is …
Five things on my mind this week: 1. Insight I’m agreeing with I watched a talk that cold email expert Alex Berman gave last year. When asked about the success factors of cold email outreach, Alex said: The biggest factor I’ve found is your website. It’s not even the content of your email, it’s not …
In email marketing getting the recipient to take action is the whole point. So here’s your opportunity to practice email marketing at work. Use these 6 steps to practice asking for something and make sure it’s just one thing.
Your homepage has #1 purpose to rule them all: convert visitors to leads. Does yours?
This article is about the importance of positioning to business development, especially for digital agencies. Whatever the hell that is. More on that below. Someone recently asked this question on Quora: What has been the best B2B marketing tactic to convert cold sales leads to warm ones? One of the best answers”: “There is …
In the 2020’s, all successful expertise consultants will ply their trade from an interactive broadcast studio; this is the essential communications conditions for a consultive selling mindset to flourish. Are you prepared?
Being charming in business, specifically in marketing, and super-specifically, in copywriting, confers an advantage. So what is charm and how can you cultivate it?
Contents Why confidence matters Who uses confidence to generate demand and sell? What determines your ability to sell? How to develop confidence in the value of the services you sell Conclusion: business confidence cultivation is an essential practice I wanted to atone for the article I wrote earlier this summer on the psychodynamics of selling …
A few days ago, I wrote about hybrid expertise firms, where I argued that small firms need to acquire, contract, or hire talent in multiple expertise areas even while they offer a narrow range of services to a narrow range of clients. That got me thinking about blending not just expertise areas but services, too. …
Continue reading “Re-thinking Hybrid SEO: Add Expertise not Services”
Is yours a complex services business? It could be if your firm is one of these: Design agency Marketing firm Advertising agency Software/data service company Sofware publishing company PR firm Web agency Digital marketing firm Management consulting firm If you’re one of these, you may have some things in common with the rest of the …
Continue reading “What is a complex services business? (And what isn’t it)”
Page One Score for big creative & digital agencies. If you could write (and design) results someone gets when they type your name into the first page of Google, what would the results be? What’s your Page One Score?
I bet you’ve heard this one before: “Word-of-mouth and referrals are the best possible leads”. Or how about “Word-of-mouth and referrals are problematic”. These are true statements, but there’s something missing, something very important about these two best kinds of leads. Tell me if you agree.
What’s the difference, between the difference, between a UX consultancy, a digital ad agency, and a tech consulting firm? In my opinion, less than we think. All digital services firms should offer a hybrid mix of creative, technological, and marketing expertise. Lemme know what you think.
This article examines Harry Browne’s definition of profit as selling happiness, in his book Secret of Selling Anything, in the light of what Cialdini teaches us about persuasion in his book Influence. Dive in!
This article dives into one of the fastest growing industries worldwide and in the US: Cannabis. It also defines The Cannabis SEO Principle. Lastly, it asks you to rethink your SEO strategy.
Do you know what the problem is? The problem is that content isn’t copy. Content is what you put in a jar or a box. Copy is messaging that inspires action. All good marketing strategies balance content with copy. This is why most services firms’ websites end up being a waste of space/money. They operate …
Continue reading “How Digital Agencies Can Break the Cycle of Bad Marketing”
This is a long one, so feel free to skip ahead Content marketing is taking took over the world Don’t take this advice (without carefully considering it) Paper-napkin cost of blogging How to tell a good blog from a waste of time Content vs Insight Is thought leadership contagious? Caculating return on investment My first attempt …
Continue reading “The true cost – and hidden benefit – of lead generation blogging”
Michelangelo’s statue of David is not the real David Let’s think about that for a moment. Who was the real David? Who created him? And was he copied by Michelangelo to create his famous statue – or was there more to it than that? You may be in a hurry, so I’ll sum up this …
Continue reading “Ideation is the art of transforming, not copying”
A popular question, an impossible question to answer, and an interesting mental exercise. This article reviews three advertisements singled out by David Ogilvy, including a “B2B ad” written by Raymond Rubicam, to try to find an answer.
Even wholesalers embrace embrace value-based sales and marketing, so why can’t a B2B services provider?
Inspired by David Baker’s expertise evaluation method which asks you to name and explain at least 20 marketing insight for those you serve.
One of the exercises advocated by management consultant David C Baker is “Drop and Give Me 20”. Here are 20 ideas about marketing that I obsess over. Tell me yours.
“Once properly positioned, building your target list of prospects to whom you will be most compelling and relevant should be easy. ~Blair Enns I couldn’t believe my ears a few years ago when I first heard this concept floated by David C Baker and Blair Enns. Build a list? Why? To ask strangers …
Continue reading “How to Create a B2B Prospect List for Your Organization”
I love the word facilitate; it reminds of a care-free youth where student co-op meetings were “facilitated” (not run or managed) by an equal among equals. Now set that image in your mind next to that of a sales conversation between a professional services provider and a business owner and you have an amusing juxtaposition united …
Most providers of B2B products and services think they should adopt a light sell for their service. They don’t like the hard sell because it feels bossy and demanding. Hard sell B2B marketing makes them feel uncomfortable. In fact, Ford made a killing in the 80s and 90s by introducing a car line whose entire …
I do brand messaging, which is the expression in writing of positioning and brand identity. On the most basic level that means writing compelling words, which applies to every kind of sales and marketing. Sometimes it’s useful to refer to this as just key copy, or key messages. But to really understand how brand messages …
UX (user experience) design is a fancy word for the age-old practice of layout, meaning how you present written content visually. And no one – certainly not designers – understands the value of layout as well as a copywriter. And whenever you make statements like this, it’s never a bad idea to cite Ben Franklin. …
Continue reading “Writer, Set Your Own Type – Copywriting is UX Design”
A commission-based compensation arrangement is not a good idea when it comes to B2B marketing and business development. At least not when the sale of complex and consultive services is at stake. Not good for the business owner, not good for the sales and marketing consultant, and not good for the client. Lose-lose-lose. That said, …
Continue reading “Here’s a Bad Idea: Commissions for Complex or Consultive B2B Services”
David Ogilvy’s secret was not direct response marketing – it was a book about direct response marketing called “Tested Advertising Methods”, by John Caples.
Standards, regulations, and rules. These are always problematic, right — really? Well, I’m not sure that’s true of the new Google Ad Grants rules that went into place on January 1st of 2018. Here’s a fact: Ad Grants–holders must now maintain an AdWords CTR (click-through-rate) of 5% or else their accounts will be suspended. There …
Continue reading “Turn the new Google Ad Grants rules into an opportunity”
Anytime you go to the market, you are *marketing*. And that’s the point: marketing is selling. We divide the work of the so-called marketer and the salesperson into two for logistical reasons, not functional reasons.
This is a short story about digital marketing and cold calling. Fresh out of school, I got a paid internship in San Mateo, CA. It was in the heart of Silicon Valley, during the dotcom boom, with “NewMedia”, a print and online magazine right in the middle of the digital world — exciting, I know, …
Printed copy has an interesting characteristic. It never changes. I once checked out a copy of “Scientific Advertising”, by Claude Hopkins from the local college library. Of course, it’s got exactly the same content now as when I first checked it out – and as when it was first published close to a century ago. …
Continue reading “Write, Rewrite, Repeat – Evergreen Digital Content”
Meetings are for making decisions. No one should (have to) participate in a meeting if they don’t contribute to making decisions. And other reflections on how to tame the beast that is a business meeting.
Back in the Clinton years, I interned at a publishing company in New Orleans and read “queries”, synopses of manuscripts that long-haul truckers, crawfish farmers, and microwave-oven chefs wanted to publish. That made me ask myself: what’s the value of writing about your work– does it make you think differently about it?
A collection of thoughts on project planning and especially the importance of budgeting the right amount of planning time into projects. #CatastropheAversion
Publicista y tertuliano tuitero Drayton Bird preguntó retóricamente: Why do people describe themselves so ludicrously here? As in "visionary", "thought-leader", "strategist" etc. — Drayton Bird (@DraytonBird) August 30, 2012 Me hizo pensar. Es verdad que es una especie de absurdez autodenominarse visionario o líder de pensamiento sin ironía. Es como calificarse a sí mismo “legendario”. …
In the book, A Technique for Producing Ideas, author James Webb Young lays out an ideation method that is “as definite a process as the production of Fords.” I think the approach still works in the Digital era.
David Ogilvy once said, “Drayton Bird knows more about direct marketing than anyone in the world.” Wow, not a bad testimonial. Naturally, I tend to pay attention to what Drayton Bird says, especially when he says it ludicrous to describe yourself as a strategist. So what is the definition of digital strategy?