Inception Marketing

by JC Hewitt on July 28, 2010

In Inception, the protagonists seek to use high technology to manipulate the subconscious minds of their targets by creating believable dreams.
Internet marketers lack the invasive and advanced ability to actually invade someone’s brain yet, but the film illustrates a basic concept of marketing as old as modern commerce itself.
The main subplot centers around a single, seemingly intractable [...]

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FlickrIMGTimParkinson

Justin McCullough discusses the basics of how to get into the mind of the prospect and sell from the prospect’s perspective. A useful, brief introduction for anyone considering going into the field of sales or who needs to troubleshoot problem areas in the pitch.

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You’re Doing It Wrong!

by Mark Brimm on July 26, 2010

You

Sounds quite snarky, doesn’t it? It kind of makes you want to punch the “guru” right in the face, right? After all, how can anyone be so naive as to assume that they know every situation in which it would be “wrong” to do it this way or that? Only a complete simpleton would be [...]

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When it comes to designing a marketing strategy, it’s easy to fall into herd behavior.
If all your competitors are focusing on search engine marketing and you’ve read a dozen books about it, then the marginal advantage to your company for following that strategy will be less than it would be otherwise.
Strategy may be an intangible [...]

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It Aint About You

by Justin McCullough on July 20, 2010

FlickrIMGTimParkinson

Justin McCullough explains why being focused on anything other than the prospect is a crash and burn formular in sales pitch 101.

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Do-follow comment backlinks for SEO

Many overlook the power of comment love from blogs ( like this one! ) who provide do-follow rel tags on all of our post links and comment links. While comment spam is understood by most blog owners to be bad, many are starting blogs without any conception of why they should provide do-follow rel tags on comments (and posts!). As someone who’s been knee-deep into SEO since well BEFORE Google, I’ll enumerate them briefly…

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Advertising is Education

by JC Hewitt July 14, 2010

Advertising is usually portrayed as something that drains brainpower rather than augments it. Science fiction authors like Phillip K. Dick were obsessed with painting dystopian futures like those portrayed in Blade Runner and Minority Report in which the average person was regularly assaulted with incessant advertising messages that prevented them from focusing on anything…

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Taking Questions is Not Selling

by Justin McCullough July 13, 2010
FlickrIMGTimParkinson

I recently observed a sales rep engage in a few sales calls. Not just one, but a few and I was surprised to find that he wasn’t selling at all. He took calls, inbound calls, and answered questions. That’s it. No selling.
One round of dialogue went something like this: “Yes it does that. No [...]

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Is It Ever Okay to Auto-DM?

by Mark Brimm July 12, 2010
Smartphone

Is it ever okay to use Auto-DMs in your Twitter strategy? It’s a question of tactics that is due for a solid rethinking.
Well, it may shock many marketing folks to hear that I’m not going to say that auto-DMs are bad across the board. There is, believe it or not, an appropriate time and place [...]

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The Matrix Bleeds Into Reality

by JC Hewitt July 7, 2010

Lessons from the virtual worlds have begun to seep into mass consciousness. What began as a niche pursuit for nerds looking for an escape from drudgery has begun to leak into the real world.
Google, Facebook, and other major companies already track, measure, and utilize a large portion of the data on consumer behavior pulsing through [...]

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