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Millennials Want to Change the World. Why Don’t We Let Them?
It was 1PM in the afternoon when she called. She was upset. Her boss undermined her authority again. He’d gone on a verbally abusive Slack rant, disrespected her in front of her entire staff, and continued to doubt her expertise. Naturally, she needed to vent. She had 10 minutes during her lunch break, so she called (…)
Marketers Manipulate Behavior and This Is Why You Should Too
There’s a common saying in marketing circles that “You’re only responsible for what you put out, not what people take away.” I’ve even preached it as an inevitability of being in the Arena. People will skim and miss your point. People will love you a LOT or hate you a LOT (both of which have nothing (…)
How to be Good at Marketing
“Yea, but he doesn’t really know marketing.” She was talking about her husband. He works in marketing, apparently. She clarified, “He’s a designer. More than anything, he’s an artist. He doesn’t really know how to (air quotes) “market” things.” I feel for this guy. The truth is the majority of people who work in marketing, (…)
The Genius Marketing Strategy Behind Traffic & Conversion Summit 2017 That You Probably Missed
Two days before Digital Marketer’s Traffic and Conversion Summit 2017, I went to check the mail and found this: Junk mail means “beautiful” in DR marketing parlance. Not one to throw away some high-end direct response (DR) copy, I opened up the letters to examine their contents. One of the pieces of junk mail was (…)
How Small Businesses Can Compete Without Big Data
Almost every day you hear a story about “Big Data” and the incredible predictive analytics that come with it. Target knows you’re pregnant before you do, Amazon knows what you want to buy, and Pizza Hut knows what you like to eat. As forbearing (and incredible) as the pundits make it seem, having mass quantities of predictive data is not a (…)
Why You Keep Falling For Fake News
There is a strange thing that happens anytime we see something published. Intellectually we know, just because it’s published, doesn’t mean it’s true. It just means it’s published. Yet, when we see something published, we start to behave like someone who’s never seen a newsreel before. We’re in a trance. There’s something about being “published” that (…)
Why Your Facebook Rants Feel So Darn Good (But Still Don’t Work)
We were at dinner. There were 6 of us. One of the six is Ann. Ann is the token loose cannon. We all are nice to Ann, but think she’s crazy. She’s a grandmother, very friendly, a little nutty. We’re polite and generally try and ignore her conspiracy theories or neuroticism because, you know, manners. (…)
What Just Happened
At some point last night, we all had that moment. That moment you tell your grandkids about, like where you were when Kennedy was shot or when the first tower was hit. Last night, that moment was, “Oh %^&!, he’s really going to win.” I was on the couch with my husband glued to our (…)
The Surprising Upside of Manipulation
A funny thing happens when you tell people you work in marketing. You become the devil. “So (dramatic pause), you manipulate people for a living?” That’s always a fun conversation starter. (I recommend this debate if you’re bored at your next dinner party. #protip) When I started in marketing, the ethical boundary for me was very (…)
Why We Buy Things We Don’t Need
You know that feeling of standing in your closet filled with clothes, but you have nothing to wear? Most people believe that feeling is the brainchild of evil of branding and marketing experts conspiring to make you addicted to wanting more stuff. Trust me, marketers wish they could dupe you into buying things you don’t want. Heck, I’d (…)