On August 3, 1997, Lee Clow, then an advertising agency rep, pitched the Think Different campaign to Steve Jobs and the team at Apple. At the time, Apple had a tarnished brand, slumping sales, and they were being dwarfed by Microsoft. The theme, “Think Different,” resonated. And it was what…
Continue reading "5 Ways B2B Marketers Can Think (and Act) Different"Archive for the ‘Planning and Measurement’ Category
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Invite Customers to a Never-Ending Talk at the Kitchen Table
A guest post by Andrew Reid of Vision Critical.
When market researchers want to find out what customers think, they do everything—except ask them directly. Face to face. Or even Facebook to Facebook.
For decades, market researchers have surveyed customers anonymously by using methods that …
Continue reading "Invite Customers to a Never-Ending Talk at the Kitchen Table"Friday, May 6, 2011
3 Ways to Ditch the “And” in “Sales and Marketing”
In 2001, I became director of marketing for an enterprise software company. My first day was the annual sales kick-off, where I was ready to go and excited to meet my sales counterparts.
In an early effort to begin aligning with sales, I decided to eat lunch with the Western Region sales team…
Continue reading "3 Ways to Ditch the “And” in “Sales and Marketing”"Friday, October 1, 2010
5 Things to Know Before Buying Marketing Automation
I had the good fortune of spending most of my childhood in a rural area. One day, when I was 13, my dad asked me to get on our old Farmall red tractor, drive down to the barn and get a few bales of hay. My father gave me a crash course in how to start it, shift gears and steer. And then I was off–…
Continue reading "5 Things to Know Before Buying Marketing Automation"Friday, July 23, 2010
False Numbers, Lost Revenue & ‘The Karate Kid II’
Now that Netflix can stream movies to computers and through the Wii, my kids are taking full advantage by watching some of the shows and movies I watched as a kid. At any given time in our home this summer, I have been serenaded by the eloquent dialogue of Hannibal from “The A-Team” and even the…
Continue reading "False Numbers, Lost Revenue & ‘The Karate Kid II’"Friday, June 18, 2010
Why We Brainstorm: To Solve, Grow, Think and Create
Research shows we spend half of each working day in meetings. Tens of millions of meetings happen each day. All these meetings about all sorts of topics and all these hours generating ideas can be boiled down into four basic reasons:
To SOLVE or fix something
To GROW a part of the business
T…
