There was an interesting article in a recent print edition of The Wall Street Journal about how there may be tough times ahead for the more than 300 advertising networks on the Web. The online edition of TWSJ is not a freebie, so I will summarize. Read more…
Adding a dash of green can do a lot for your marketing — as long as your claims are valid. But don’t market yourself as environmentally friendly if you’re not, you’ll give fodder to activist groups and others who could paint you as a “green washer.”
MarketingSherpa has published Case Studies and research data on list segmentation for seven years now. We’ve got data coming out of our ears showing that if you split your list into groups by recent activity and/or demographic and send special campaigns to those groups, your response rates will soar.
Nearly everyone says: “Oh yes. Segmentation is a best practice. But I don’t have the time/money/software/energy to do it. So I’ll keep blasting my entire house list with the exact same creative and timing from now until someday.” Read more…
If you’re ever looking for an interesting marketing read (besides MarketingSherpa, of course!), check out Robert Cialdini’s books on influence.
The two books I’m most familiar with are Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive and Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Both books cite droves of research to help explain why people say “yes” to marketing offers and other requests. We recently published an article highlighting some of Cialdini’s strategies.
Both books are loaded with takeaways and interesting background stories. I found a particularly interesting piece of marketing history in Yes! concerning Duracell and Energizer.
As terrible as they are, marketing layoffs have been very good to me. Years ago, I got my first major career break due to layoffs. Over a period of three months, position after position was eliminated, and the boss handed me the work to do instead. Mainly, this was because I was the cheapest position in the marketing department.
These battlefield promotions can be the making of a young marketer. I am grateful to this day for the opportunities that allowed me to gain the experience in months that, normally, would have taken years. Read more…
The demographics in Canada and the U.S. are shifting. In Canada, specifically, more than 10 groups represent a significant portion of the population. There are about a million Chinese, a million Italians, a million Southeast Asians, etc.
More and more Canadian marketers are watching these demographics. They’re tailoring marketing programs to them, says Jan Kestle, Founder and President of Environics Analytics. She says the financial services and telecom sectors have taken the multicultural marketing lead in North America.
I got a call this week from a charitable organization. Their cause sounded very, very worthy.
But this is what happened. I asked them: If I made a donation, would they email me a receipt? I made it clear that that would be the only way I would contribute. I have had the experience in the past, where if you donate, the organization will email you a receipt. Read more…
For the last few months, MarketingExperiments has been testing which times of the morning work best for their webinar announcements. The results — in terms of number of signups — have been surprising. Read more…
The heads of Sequoia Capital gave a CEO-only presentation on Oct. 7 that I can describe only as the ‘PowerPoint of doom’. The cover slide even had a tombstone on it.
Last week, private equity firms (e.g., Benchmark Capital) and other major investors (e.g., Ron Conway) followed suit, sending a flurry of doom-laden advisory emails to hundreds of CEOs. Read more…
Right now, classic demographics such as ‘Men aged 18-24’ just won’t cut it anymore. I’ve asked MarketingSherpa’s research team to conduct a formal study examining the changing demographics of our fair nation in the face of this seemingly endless series of economic crises. You can expect new demographic reports to appear in future Sherpa newsletters.
