Archive for November, 2008
Black Friday….Cyber Monday
As usual, I will be staying out of the stores this Black Friday. I have the luxury of not working full-time, so I can do my shopping anytime at all. Plus, I already have a quasi-handle on it. Plus, I’m going to play with the ratio between spend-on-stuff-no-one-really-needs and give-to-those-who-don’t-have-much. And there’s one thing about [...]
No guts, no glory: marketing way out on the edge of the limb
An article (linked on CNN) on a daredevil who crossed Colorado’s Royal Gorge in a jet pack caught my eye the other day,
Articles like this always manage to catch my eye, largely because, while I love the idea of a jet pack, using one to cross a chasm with a 1,100 foot drop would [...]
Taking advantage of what’s in the news
In September 2001, I was working for a web hosting company.
I wasn’t in the marketing communications group, but as the head of product marketing, I was involved in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on how we could market our disaster recovery (DR) services without appearing exploitative and tasteless. (Seven years later, I feel [...]
Marketing Through the Gloom
Is there doubt in anyone’s mind that 2009 is going to be tough on B2B tech marketing budget (and probably marketers, as well)?
There are so many ways in which marketing, especially in the bean counter’s eye, looks like pure, unadulterated discretionary expense. So it’s exceedingly easy to hit the delete key on that expense line. [...]
Two-fers
I usually don’t chintz out like this, but I’m running out of steam, and I do have two posts over on Pink Slip this week that actually relate to marketing. So here goes:
On Monday, I wrote about a “citizens marketer” effort by Wal-Mart that I found interesting (and, surprise-surprise, a bit revolting).
On Tuesday, I [...]
What Marketers Can Learn from the 2008 Election
Now that we’ve had a few minutes to recover from/mull over the recent presidential election, I’ve been thinking about the lessons that plain old non-politico marketers can take from it.
Here’s a few things that I came up with.
A combination of old and new methods just may work best. An awful lot has already been [...]
Think and Do
When I was in primary school, we had workbooks that were called Think and Do. They were full of simple little arithmetic problems and written-word exercises - busy work, of course. And who could blame a nun trying to manage a class with 45 kids in it by setting them to some busy work task. [...]
Today’s stand alone product, tomorrow’s check list feature
Consider the point application, especially as brought to you by a small, one product B2B software company.
Your application solves a problem, and may even solve it quite well.
As marketing, you have, of course,helped define the application with a particular market in mind. You know your target intimately: why they need and want your product, how [...]
Content Junkie
One of my all-time favorite movies is Being There, the 1979 - that long ago? yikes! - classic in which Peter Sellers plays Chance the Gardener, a naive, sheltered, dim-witted, and illiterate who, through a series of improbable happenings, becomes a presidential advisor.
There are some wonderful scenes in it, and one of my favorites is [...]
I’m dreaming of a Black-berry
Sometimes it seems as if, as the lowly possessor of a dumbphone, and a dumber ancient Palm Pilot, I am not worthy of calling myself a technology marketer. Shouldn’t I be showing at least some modicum of tech lust, after all? Don’t I need to demonstrate to my clients that I’m with it. Every time [...]
