Portable smarts — at your fingertips

May 6, 2008

I’ve always loved trade magazines.  I love their focus, I love how bite-sized the information is and, I love that it’s off-line and tangible.  Portable smarts.  Love that.

So when I was approached about offering my readers free magazines, I was skeptical.  What was the catch?  Turns out there isn’t one. 

You get free magazines on marketing, promotions, branding, creativity etc.  They get more readers for their advertisers.  You get smarter.

Hard to argue with that equation.   So click here and check out the 500+ magazines, white papers, podcasts etc that are all available to you.  (As I understand it, some of these titles are only available in the States, FYI.)

I’ll feature a new title now and then, just to keep you plugged in to what’s available.

A side note:  I get a commission on the complimentary subscriptions which I’ll be donating to charity.

So….you get smarter and Variety, the Children’s Charity gets a little green in their pockets.  Sweet.

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Would we recognize your logo by its first letter alone?

May 5, 2008

How recognizable is your logo?  Have you created it in a way that over time, your clients might be able to ID it simply by seeing the first letter?

Try this test, put together by InthePictureDesign on flickr.  He grabbed some pretty well known logos and we only get to see the first letter.  Can you identify them?

 

Need help?  Answers are here.

So…how would your logo fare in a contest like this?  I know you don’t have a Coke or Disney budget, but within your sphere of influence — how iconic is your mark/name?

Hat tip to Susan at BrandCurve for sharing this.

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Want to know someone? Look at who’s around them.

May 4, 2008

More than a month ago, Robyn McMaster tagged me, asking me to share a quote that I found to be inspirational and dedicate it to at least three other bloggers who, for me, embody the quote.  (Robyn was tagged by Joanna Young)

Robyn’s quote, which she dedicated to me, Liz Strauss, Chris Brown, Gavin Heaton and Ellen Weber was:

The brain is designed to grab what input it can and then
boil it up into a froth of understanding. 

John McCrone

First…lofty praise that I’ll do my best to live up to and second, that’s an impressive group to be sharing an attribution with.  Thank you.

I have given this quite a bit of thought. I’ve actually had my quote identified for several weeks but just wanted to let it simmer for a bit.  I used the quote on the program for Blogger Social’s Saturday night dinner program, knowing I’d write more about it here.

I think one of life’s most valuable skills is to see people clearly.  To know not only who they appear to be, but who they truly are and who they aspire to become.

My secret weapon for figuring that out is to observe who they surround themselves with.  I don’t believe there is anything more telling.  We choose to spend time with people that we connect with, that have similar hearts and values.  We surround ourselves with people who not only support us but inspire us to be even better than we are today.

So with that, I dedicate this quote to some of my amazing friends, who I am proud to be measured and judged by. 

Tell me your friends, and I’ll tell you who you are.

Assyrian Proverb

My thanks to you: Gavin Heaton, CK, Lori Magno, and Luc Debaisieux.  To be judged by your presence in my life is a good fortune I’m not sure I deserve but I will gladly accept.

 

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Are our words fading away?

May 3, 2008

There a roughly a zillion blogs and about a bazillion blog posts (these are approximations).  Those posts use a gazillion and a half words.  Every day.

Think of the words that seem to crop up everywhere.  Transparency, conversation, consumer generated, authentic, engaged, empower.  We could go on and on.

But here’s my question.  Are we using this words so often and in so many places that we’re wearing them out?  Are we reducing their impact and meaning?  Are we squeezing the potency from them?

Can words tire?  Can we tire of words?

Those are the questions I pose over at Marketing Profs Daily Fix.  Come share your thoughts.

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How low tech but high touch can you get?

May 2, 2008

Phew — I just finished writing my thank you notes to a few people who went way out of their way at Blogger Social.  Now I just need to address them and off they go.

I come from a long line of thank you note writers.

The rule was straightforward and simple when I was growing up.  Within 3 days of Christmas, we had to sit down and write our than you notes.  Because my birthday is 4 days before Christmas, I got doubly slammed.  We’d come down for breakfast and there would be a list of who we needed to thank, some note cards, and a pen. 

There was no wiggle room and believe me, I knew there was no debate.  A generation later, my daughter suffers this same fate.

When was the last time you got a handwritten note from someone?  How did it make you feel?   Last week, I got a note from Valeria Maltoni.  In my response to her, I said…"It’s such a rare art today — the handwritten note.  I think it honors both the receiver and the sender and as always, I appreciate your thoughtfulness."

There’s a grace in handwriting a note.  It transmits how much you value the other person.

When was the last time you sent a client a handwritten note?   What do you think would happen to your relationships with your clients if you carved out enough time to write one thank you note a week, until you had written to all your clients?

Is it worth ten minutes a week to find out?

(If you need to get a note out in a hurry — try Send Out Cards.  It’s a very viable alternative.)

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Support and prayers for our buddy, MasiGuy

May 1, 2008

One of the biggest benefits of online communication is how quickly something can be created and shared.  Works well for marketing and it also works well when the community needs to be alerted to something.

Today we quickly got word that Tim Jackson (aka MasiGuy), a much loved and respected marketing & cycling blogger was in a serious cycling accident Tuesday night.

While competing in a race, he hit the boards in the 24th lap of a 25-lap contest and sustained a concussion, broken ribs, a few of his neck bones are fractured, his thumb was badly severed and required surgery.

Fortunately he was wearing a helmet or this story would probably not have a happy ending.  Tim’s going to have a doozy of a recovery but no doubt he’ll be back in the saddle as soon as he can be.

What can we do?  What we do best.  Rally around him, send encouragement, and if you can afford to, give him a little help financially to get through this tough time.

 

Read updates about him, leave a message and learn about the Get Well fund at this post right here.

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What are you overlooking?

April 28, 2008

Everyone is scrambling to find the next new thing in marketing.  How do we break through the clutter?  What high tech wonder can we harness to get our customer’s attention?  How can I be one step ahead of the competition?

Recently, I was reminded that sometimes we just have to look at things a little differently to find the answer.  No new medium, no new gadget — just seeing something that was in front of us all along.

I know it won’t surprise you to learn that I was getting on a plane recently.  I had changed my flight so I was in the last group of people to be called to board the plane.  The line was moving right along and for some reason I noticed that people were actually looking at the gate agent.  They were having a brief exchange of some kind.  People were smiling.  "How weird is that," I thought.

As I got closer, I could hear the gate agent.  As he scanned each person’s boarding pass, he was greeting them by name.  He varied the greeting…"welcome aboard, how are you doing, good to see you, thanks for flying with us"….but he ended them all with the person’s name.

Here’s a guy who was creating instant customer impressions.  No marketing budget.  No memo.  No meetings.  He just realized that everyone’s name was printed on the boarding pass and he could use that fact to create a "talk about" moment.

Sure, he called me Andrew instead of Drew (I just assumed I was in trouble!) so it wasn’t a perfect execution.  And I’m sure he knew that every once in awhile he was going to mispronounce a name.  But he forged ahead anyway.  And it was absolutely noteworthy.

Our names have been on boarding passes for years.  This is the first time I have ever had a gate agent call me by name as I passed by.  It doesn’t have to be a big thing to be a remarkable thing.   Think of the thousands of gate agents who could have done the same thing, but it never occurred to them.

What have you overlooked?

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When an internal corporate video goes terribly wrong

April 26, 2008

This just goes to prove that a big budget does not guarantee you can make a purse from a sow’s ear.  Check out this internal (no doubt sales team motivating) video from Microsoft. Brace yourself — it really is that bad.

 

Of course, that might not be the whole story.  One version of the story is that Microsoft made this (according to an unidentified employee) as a joke.

Here’s the real lesson — in today’s world, you can’t really afford to be this lame, even if it is a joke.

I’ll bet that 9/10ths of the almost a million people who have viewed this on YouTube took it as a true Microsoft team video.  The other 1/10th who believe it’s a joke are still shaking their head.

Whether you are a powerhouse brand like Microsoft or the local bait shack — everything you do is shareable and accessible.  What do you really want your customers and peers seeing?

What do you think?  Does all this sharing and accessibility put an unfair choke hold on companies that want to just let loose a little?

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Are gas prices impacting your spending habits?

April 25, 2008

If not, you are in the minority according to research released today by Kelley Blue Book.

 

"Gas prices are already affecting vehicle sales in every segment, and traditional sport utility vehicles have been especially hard hit," says Jack Nerad, executive editorial director and executive market analyst for Kelley Blue Book. "Other industries will feel the pinch as consumers cut out life’s little luxuries like clothes, eating out and entertainment just so they can pay the fuel bills."

Check out the chart to the right to see the significance in the numbers.  The declines in spending are across the board — big purchases and small. 

6 months ago, 43% of consumers said they were not going to change their spending habits.  Today’s numbers show that almost half of those people have now changed their mind.

This is our reality, so it is certainly interesting from that perspective.  But let’s look at it as marketers for a minute.  The world has suffered recessions before and spending bounces back when the economy does, right?

But what happens when there is no bounce back?

Rising gas prices are not showing any signs that this trend is slowing down.  In fact, here in the US, a gallon of gas is expected to top $4 by summer and rise to $5.50 by 2010 and $7 by 2012.

So waiting it out isn’t the answer.  What do you think is?  How will you have to change the way you market your product or service?

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What social media tools are a must for business?

April 23, 2008

 

If you could only use/choose (up to) 10 different social media tools to enhance your business/organization’s performance and ability to get the job done — which ones would you choose….and why?

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