The marketing funnel explained including questions to help diagnose and improve your funnel. Includes a template to build your own. Do you have a marketing funnel? Does it work? Maybe you hesitated in answering either of those questions. Or maybe you’re a bit hazy on what a marketing funnel is. That’s OK. Search the web and you’ll find many definitions, …
7 Characteristics to Define Your Marketing Target
Ways to define your marketing target. Answer each one to make your marketing target more actionable and competitive, so you can win. Chances are, your marketing target is too broad. It’s more common than not. Maybe you want to reach Millennials… Baby Boomers… moms… corporations… Broad targets like these put your business or brand in a weak competitive position. It’s …
10 Soft Skills Business Leaders Need to Succeed
10 soft skills that, if mastered, enable brand and business leaders to work with integrity, get things done, and ultimately get promoted. When did it become okay to leave people hanging? To treat others poorly? To not follow through on commitments? You hear a lot of talk these days about values, collaboration and leadership. But what do these words mean? …
A Powerful Sales Presentation Outline
As a marketer, you are always selling. From external customer pitches to internal leadership alignment, knowing how to create a compelling sales presentation means knowing how to tell a story. While most of us get the basic concept of storytelling, it helps to have a tangible example to look at. So, I’m sharing an example sales presentation outline and flow …
How 3 Established Consumer Brands Unlocked New Growth
A marketing definition for frame of reference and three examples of consumer brands that expanded their domain. Includes a downloadable eBook pdf of case studies. How do they do it? Those big brands that dominate across multiple aisles. It’s hard enough to win in a single category, let alone enter adjacent categories and have success there, too. Many brands attempt …
My Three Words for 2017
Let’s make great things happen this year. Here are three words that will guide my success. What are yours? 2016 was a whirlwind for me. I went through job changes, started a company, had health issues (better now!), my wife went back to work after almost 10 years, our kids’ schedules have taken off (two boys active in school and …
This Week in Marketing Strategy: Mercury Marine Revival, Great Rejections, Most Innovative States
Welcome to the December 26, 2016 edition of This Week in Marketing Strategy. Here I’ll highlight a few articles, blog posts or interesting pieces from around the web that are newsworthy or trending over the last one to two weeks. First up: Mercury Marine Targets Young Boaters in First Campaign Since 2011, courtesy of adage.com. Mercury Marine is a 77-year-old company, but you wouldn’t …
Complete Marketing Plan Template (Word) to Make Planning Easier
A marketing plan template in Microsoft Word format to make planning a breeze. Simply open it up and fill out each section of the outline to develop your plan. Maybe you’re not sure where to start. Maybe you’re looking at a blank page. Or maybe you just want to be sure you haven’t left something really important out of your …
7 Things All Strategic Brand Architectures Have in Common
A how-to guide to writing a strategic brand architecture including a downloadable pdf template. Have you ever begun working on a business and discovered numerous products/services in your portfolio? So many that it’s not clear why you’re selling some of them at all? You are not alone. As a consultant, I received numerous calls from clients asking for help in …
10 Ways Leaders Navigate Conflict
Disagreement over key decisions is common in the workplace. This article features 10 tips to navigate conflict for a successful outcome. DISAGREEMENT HAPPENS Recently, a former colleague of mine (let’s call him “Jack”) revealed a sad but common story. A coworker who didn’t like Jack’s project plan recently blind-sided him. The coworker went directly to Jack’s boss behind his back …