I’ve been thinking a lot about collaborative marketing lately, and how we can turn co-existing businesses more into partners and less about missed opportunities. I think there’s a great untapped market for someone that really wants to grab collaborative marketing and run with it. For example – imagine you’re going on a trip. You have to fly to get there, so there are a few processes you need to go through before, during and after: Buying your ticket. Driving to the…

What do people think of you when they first meet you? What do you think their immediate impression is? If it’s personally, you might not care too much – after all, to each their own, right? But what if you’re a business offering a service – does that change your train of thought? Does the view of the same new face now hold more sway? Even more so, what if your service is one that defines people’s first impressions of…

For me, the best marketing or advertising success stories are exactly that – real stories. People connect with people, and that’s when the magic happens. Sure, brands and products are important – but if you don’t touch that inner emotion that takes a potential customer from intent to the buying trigger, then you won’t get the sale, simple as. Israeli creative agency smoyz clearly understand this, as their recent Facebook campaign for Kleenex shows. The goal was simple – to…

The following post is an excerpt from my chapter in Danny Iny’s new book, Engagement From Scratch: How Super Community Builders Create a Loyal Audience and How You Can Do the Same. It features lessons in community building and content marketing from the likes of Guy Kawasaki, Brian Clark, Mitch Joel, Kristi Hines, Gini Dietrich and many more. A review of the book will appear later this week. I Would Have Posted Less Frequently I started off writing a blog…

If I asked you the most important part of your business, what would you say? Marketing? PR? Perhaps advertising or sales? Now what if I said they’re all irrelevant? What if I said you don’t need sales to be successful? You’d probably say (fairly sarcastically), “Why not just hand my business over to my competitors while I’m at it?”. And you’d be right – if I were serious. Of course PR, marketing, advertising and sales are relevant, and hugely important parts…

Take a look at the video at the end of this post. It’s a fan-made homage to the band Dashboard Confessional and their song So Long, So Long. There’s nothing special about it. It’s a simple piece of video, made with Windows Movie Maker then put up on Youtube for the creator’s friends to see. And yet… Its simplicity is also its strength. The mood and pace of the video complement the song perfectly, and doesn’t take away from the song itself. There are no…

Want to know the only marketing tip you’ll ever need? People. Want. Things. That’s it. It can be anything – good luck charms; medicines; food; drink; news; shoe polish. Anything. With the exception of air, everything else costs. So there’s a need to be filled. How you fill that need is where the difference comes into play. Some folks will go for service; some folks will go for price; some folks will go for nationality; some folks will go for…

There’s a mindset among many business owners that they need to be on social media. Specifically, they need to be on Facebook; or Twitter; or LinkedIn; or have a blog; or look ahead to business options on Google Plus. This is usually fostered by fly-by-night consultants and agencies who tap into the fear factor so many businesses have about social media, and use blinding statistics and numbers about these platforms, and why a business needs to be on them. You…

Every weekend without fail, my local electronics retailer runs a flyer in the local newspaper. It highlights special offers and discounts and proudly displays “This weekend only!” in the header. The flyer’s nice and bright and there’s a huge collection of images, from large-screen TV’s to computers to video games to smartphones and more. Great, you might say. Can never have enough advertising or marketing, right? Wrong. You see, every weekend the retailer puts out his flyer, it’s always the…

The Law of Attraction is a multi-billion dollar industry that has as many critics as it does fans. Its fans rave over its benefits, while its critics point out flaws in its approach and its inability to be measured. Whatever side of the coin you fall on, there’s another angle that – to me – is more effective and is a prerequisite to any law of attraction, and that’s the Law of Emotional Connection. Note – don’t worry, I’m not…