being a marketer
What Microsoft Has Meant to Marketers
This past week, Bill Gates pretty much stepped away from Microsoft, which got me thinking about what Microsoft has done for marketers and the marketing profession over the years.
First off, there are the tools of the trade that almost all of us use - those trusty stand-bys, Word and PowerPoint.
I’m old enough to remember the [...]
Walk a Mile in My Shoes
Over on the Trusted Advisor, Charlie Green had a very interesting post last week entitled “A Marketing Company that Really Gets It On Trust.” In his article, Charlie talks about the marketing firm Unit7, with a special shout out to one particular campaign:
… on Type 2 Diabetes…They offered the entire office’s staff a chance to [...]
Marketing the Goods in Real Time
If there’s one group that regularly tip my cap, helmet, and sweatband to it’s those who do the marketing for professional sports teams.
I may not always agree with them, and sometimes they’re so over the top I just have to laugh out loud. (Major League Baseball caskets, anyone?) And they do have it somewhat [...]
Outsourcing your marketing writing
The other day, I was with my favorite opinionated marketers - John and Sean - at a client site. We were there to kick-off Phase 2 of a project we’ve been working on for the past couple of months.
Our clients had just told us that they have an offer out for their first full-time marketing [...]
Haven’t I Seen This Movie Before?
A few weeks ago I had lunch with a friend and former colleague who’s also in marketing. Like me, my friend has worked in large companies, worked in small companies, done freelance work. Like me, my friend has done pretty much everything on the product management through product marketing through marcom continuum. Like me, my [...]
A Beeline to Uline
Don’t ask me why I’m so enamored of the Uline catalog my husband gets every once in a while. They’re a company that specializes in shipping supplies, and 99.9999% of the shipping Jim does is via e-mail attachments, but he is incorporated, and somehow he found his way onto the Uline list.
It’s not as if [...]
Sweating the Small Stuff
In general, "don’t sweat the small stuff" isn’t a bad way to live. If you obsess about every teensie-weensie little thing - did I just spell teensie-weensie right? - you’ll drive yourself nuts, and lose track of the "stuff" that really matters.
But in marketing, a lot of what we do ends up entailing a lot [...]
Pragmatic Marketing: Effective Product Marketing Rule #2
This is the first in a series of posts on Pragmatic Marketing’s Effective Product Marketing Rules.
Effective Product Marketing Rule #2: Never Confuse Efforts with Results.
Forget product marketing, I can think of few rules that are so applicable across the boards in business, or even in life.
Here’s my life story: Last October, I fractured my arm [...]
Pragmatic Marketing: Effective Product Marketing Rule #1
This is the first in a series of posts on Pragmatic Marketing’s Effective Product Marketing Rules.
Effective Product Marketing Rule #1: Time spent on Gather, Assess, Focus, Measure & Improve reduces time and budget wasted on Build & Execute.
(Last Monday, I summarized Pragmatic Marketing’s approach to Product Marketing, which you may find useful to review to [...]
Magical Thinking: miracle occurs here
It is tempting in business - especially when it comes to marketing, I’m afraid, to indulge in Magical Thinking.
This is when you let it get in your head that if you did just ONE THING it would make all the difference in the world.
If you went to the right show…
If you wooed the right analyst…
If [...]
