Transparency: the Rewards of Your Company Being Itself

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.”

-Dr. Suess

You are out on a first date. Generally you want to make a good impression, but you still have options to how you're going to present yourself. On the one hand you, could lie through your teeth presenting yourself as something you're not building a persona you can never live up to. On the other hand, you could present yourself genuinely to the wildest extreme and hope that your date likes you for who you really are.  Most people would choose a road somewhere in the middle.  Finding a corporate identity is much like the first couple of dates.

Value Based Marketing: No One Cares About Your Business (But You)

I was doing research for a client studying the consumer decision process in the beauty care industry.  I found that not only did marketing fluff lose and confuse consumers with shorter attention spans, but it actually frustrated customers with a little more diligence.  I found one of the biggest things that consumers wanted was a concise proposal (in this case a label) that clearly explained the products key ingredients and benefits.

I was planning to write a blog article about defluffling, decrappifying, de-BSing your marketing. I was doing some background research, seeing what other have already said, when I can across the following comment:

“I see too many websites that focus on the company rather than the potential customer and as you rightly say they tend to ramble on.” 

Jamie Fairbairn, posted on Jim’s Marketing Blog.

SEO Study: Google Rewards 'Local' Businesses: 4 Really Easy Ways to Improve Your SEO

Many small/local businesses avoid representing themselves as small or local.  They worry about missing out on business or an audience if they set their location to too specific of an area (i.e. describing a business as serving an area like Northern California or the South Bay rather than a specific city or suburb).  Marketing a business as local or global (as well as everything in between) can have advantages and disadvantages and it is impossible to say that one is definitely better than the other, however a study conducted by SEOmoz indicates that Google might favor local businesses in search results.

This is a longer article with a lot of information, click here to read just the takeaway.

8 Reasons Why Your Business Should Get a Google+ Account (in Addition to your Facebook Account)

This is an article I wrote for Catamaran Marketing's blog. It started off as a fairly simple writing assignment, but turned into a bit of a research project.  Enjoy!


People may be “Liking” and “Commenting” on Facebook . . . but they’re still Searching on Google

Market experts estimate 65% of online searches are conducted through Google.  Google processes an average of 34,000 searches per second (that’s roughly 2 million per minute, 121 million per hour, 3 billion per day, and 88 billion per month).  In June 2011 Google got to brag that it was the first website to receive 1 billion unique visitors in a single month, a number that Facebook not reached to this day.

Below are 8 reasons why Google+ rivals and may even trump Facebook as the social platform for business and marketing.

Google+ and Search
1. Google+ is highly searchable, Facebook is not.

Ron Paul on Mark Zuckerberg: Is Facebook's success representative of the American Dream?

The other night I was watching Pierce Morgan interview presidential hopeful Ron Paul.  Among other things they got to discussing Facebook’s IPO and how Zuckerberg’s story relates to the American dream.  The whole interview can be found here. Here is the part of the interview that caught my attention:

Positive Marketing: Turning a Lose Lose Into a Win Win

How does your marketing reflect the attitude of your company?  How does your marketing take advantage of positive situations?  How does your marketing take advantage of seemingly negative situations?  I came across this promotion at work, the thing more interesting than the deal itself was the impact it had on customer perception.

Value Based Marketing Case Study: Walmart vs Best Buy

I am lucky enough to have a Walmart and a Best Buy right next to each other.  When I am buying something electronic I usually walk into the Walmart first to see what they have and how much it costs and then walk into Best Buy. More often than not, I will find the same exact product that I saw at Walmart for 20-40% more (i.e. a product I find that costed $25 at Walmart will cost $40 at Best Buy).

Why can Best Buy sell the same products as Walmart at such a higher margin?