Category archives for

– Digital Marketing –

What A One-Hit Wonder Taught Me About Marketing

by Jason Falls · May 20, 2013

There’s one phone number that most people can recite, regardless of demographic. And I mean full phone number, not 9-1-1. Think about it for a minute: What’s the one phone number than most everyone you know has in common they can recite without hesitation? 867-5309.

Tommy Tutone’s hit from 1981 emblazoned the number in our minds, and while little more of the song is all that memorable, “867-5309/Jenny” has an incredible marketing lesson buried within it’s one-hit wonderness. The song is the probably drunken announcement of a man who finds the number of a woman written on a bathroom wall. “For a good time, call …” graffiti, while most often a cruel joke, is the ultimate in smart marketing.

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Dynamic Content | The Future of the Web is Here

by Nichole Kelly · April 23, 2013

There is a new trend that is on the horizon. It’s subtle so you may not even notice its happening until it’s too late. It’s mostly referred to as Dynamic Content which doesn’t seem substantial enough to truly describe its power.

Here’s a thought to help clarify.

What if your website could change for every visitor to show them the content that is MOST relevant to them?

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6 comments

Marketers are Failing Miserably at Building Business Credibility

by Nichole Kelly · April 16, 2013

Does that make your blood boil a little? It sure does for me. I’ve spent my entire career as a marketer trying to prove marketing’s value to business results. To see that my “peeps” lack credibility and are viewed as not understanding business is disheartening to say the least. In the early days in my career I noticed there were two different types of companies that had a large impact on marketer credibility: sales-driven companies and market-driven companies.

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8 comments

Facebook Saturation

by Jason Falls · March 4, 2013

Facebook is getting noisy. You’ve noticed it, too. If I’ve had one person mention a lot more sponsored posts and in-stream advertising in the last month, I’ve had 100. It’s frustrating for some users, interesting for marketers and a economic boon to the advertisers using it well.

But let’s not make assumptions about why it’s happening, how people are reacting to it or what it means because assumptions are, almost always, wrong.

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17 comments

A Conference That Can Help You Reinvent Your Business

by Ilana Rabinowitz · February 28, 2013

Why do you go to a conference? Perhaps to learn more about tactics that have worked well for others. Or to network with people in your field. Often, it’s to educate yourself on cutting edge techniques or tools.

But can a conference help you become more innovative? Can a conference help you think beyond the scope of best practices and industry trends? Is it possible to return from a conference inspired and equipped to do the creative work that will help you reinvent your business?

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3 comments

Businesses Have Something to Learn from Internet Marketers

by Nichole Kelly · February 27, 2013

For some of us the words “online marketer” makes us want to throw up in our mouth a little. Why? Because most people think of online marketers as those people who trick you into giving them your email address so they can spam you with crappy offers for things you don’t want. I’ve certainly run into my share of these. But here’s the reality. Love ‘Em or Hate ‘Em, we all have something to learn from online marketers.

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17 comments

The Death of the Sales Funnel As We Know It

by Nichole Kelly · February 19, 2013

The sales funnel has been around for as long as any of us have been in business. It is a tool that has been used to visualize everything from the sales process to marketing impact on an organization. I’m a big fan of the sales funnel. It is one of the primary visuals I’ve used to help executives understand where social media and digital marketing fit into the context of business. But the truth is, the traditional sales funnel model has been dead for years; we just haven’t come to accept it yet. So why do I still use it? Because people understand it. I know it isn’t perfect, but I look for the opportunity to create progress while we work on optimizing for perfection.

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39 comments

Technology Is The Drive, Humanity Is The Touchdown

by Jason Falls · February 18, 2013

There are two sides to good digital marketing execution, whether it’s email, website, mobile, social or even customer service. One side is the technology. Without good technology, you’re crippled in today’s marketing environment. You need a fast and responsive website. You need software to help you manage social networks. You need versatile email software that perhaps even serves as a customer relationship management portal. Technology is critical. But it’s only half of the prerequisite for digital marketing success.

The other half is humanity, or perhaps better put, human-ness. The technology only gets you down the field a bit. Humanity takes you across the respective goal line.

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7 comments

The Difference In Fan and Customer Acquisition

by Jason Falls · February 11, 2013

The CMO of a large retail brand stood on stage recently, proudly showing off a fan acquisition campaign that had successfully driven tens of thousands more “Likes” on Facebook. A hand went up in the audience. “Those ‘Likes’ are impressive, but how many of your products did you sell as a result?”

The CMO shrugged and said, “Well, that really wasn’t the point of the campaign. It was about acquisition.”

It’s a good thing that CMO was talking to an audience of marketers and not his or her board of directors. If they had been, that would have likely been the last words he or she uttered as CMO of that particular company.

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