When marketing teachers talk about your "Unique Selling Proposition" or "USP", they nearly always assume that you have one, but just haven't figured it out yet. But what if you don't have one? What if you really are just another "me too" marketer? Should you just give up and go back to your day job,...
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Terry Dean didn't beat around the bush when he wrote: You cannot create desire for your product. Trying to do so is a losing proposition. All we do in business is find out what hopes, dreams, fears, and desires people already have...and supply them with products that match. We create value based around what people...
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Whether you're a multinational corporation or a hobbyist making a few dollars off your blog, your brand -- the name, logo, slogan, etc. that identifies you -- can make a big difference in your current profits and future possibilities. A recent Mashable article quotes Aswath Damodaran, a professor of finance at New York University, saying:...
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Last week, Ray Edwards posted an interesting assertion about truth in marketing -- I'm trying to decide whether to find it disturbing: Myths are stories that teach us something about our best selves, that inspire us to reach for something better, or that caution us against grave error. ... Marketing, in its pure and noble...
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Some websites stink -- bad colors, bad design, bad content, etc. But that's not what I'm talking about today. I mean it literally, what does your website smell like? I'm also not talking about some newfangled device you connect to your computer's USB port that outputs fragrances specified by a website's CSS (that's "cascading smell...
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Terry Dean posted an article on his blog today about how drastically the words you use can affect how your message is received. He drove the point home with an interesting example: Apple currently owns phone with their iPhone. Google launches the Android. ... The Android talks about how they have an OPEN system while...
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Last week, I read an article on the Neuromarketing website about "blindsight" and subliminal marketing. It started off talking about how people blinded by brain damage can sometimes "see" without being consciously aware of it: ...in addition to our main visual processing system, we have a secondary, more primitive system that feeds directly into our...
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Back in July, Shane Snow posted an article on Mashable titled HOW TO: Use Game Mechanics to Power Your Business. Common game elements like points, badges, leaderboards, and levels are proven (and increasingly popular) ways to engage customers and encourage profit-driving consumer behavior. Foursquare is a great example of why these work. At the time,...
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You've probably heard the hubbub about the FTC changing what's allowed in testimonials, but I think something needs to be clarified. (I'm not a lawyer, this isn't legal advice, I may be totally wrong, blah, blah, blah.) In their press release, the FTC said: Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey...
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If you've ever tried monetizing a website, you know about banner blindness: the uncanny ability of web surfers to view a website without seeing the banner ads that are plastered all over it. I've just posted a case study video showing how I added one little thing to one of my sites and boosted the...
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