What matters?
One of the most common questions I get is how you get away from competing on price. A couple of things are common in the situation that leads to the question: Someone else has control of the value chain. This is often the case with an FMCG product. In Australia...
10 questions for a Customer Value Audit.
Customer Value has almost become a cliché, often trotted out to cover the lack of real marketing insight. Effective articulation of customer value, and the business model and processes to deliver it remains at the core of those businesses that find success. It is...
Do you need a telephone?
I asked that question a week or so ago of a group of SME's, most of whom did not have any digital presence. None said their businesses would survive without a phone. Why is it then that they think they can survive without a website and social media presence? These...
Another bloody meeting
Meetings are supposed to be a place where work gets done, accountabilities exercised options articulated and examined, decisions made, and outcomes reported. However, often they become just a reason to have another meeting. Whilst the public sector comes in...
Scale social one person at a time.
There are platforms that will automate social for you, do everything, except the one thing that really counts, make a person to person connection. "Social Media" badly used is a terrible misnomer, it is often anti-social media, an effort to remove people from...
10 rules for small retailers to out-compete chains
Chain stores dominate our grocery shopping environment, they have developed all the advantages of scale, and use them to the advantage of their shareholders, by delivering returns, and to customers by delivering low prices. The model works, in Australia 75% of the...
My greatest marketing mistake
One of the most memorable, and biggest mistakes I made as a young product manager was to redesign a pack. The product was an old fashioned, relatively low value product on supermarket shelves, it had a small niche to itself, and the sales ticked over, pretty...
9 thoughts for SME’s on Friday 13th.
Walk under any ladders yet? It seemed appropriate to have a think about some of the silly superstitions that infest the world of marketing, and proffer a view about the reality. "The internet will never be a good marketing tool". Hello, the jury came back a...
1 social media tool for maximum impact.
There are many contenders for the most effective social media too around, and just as many promoters. "Email marketing" and "Content marketing" usually occupy the first and second places, but to my mind are one and the same. Email does not work without content,...
Everyone is in Marketing & Sales!
We all know the world of sales has changed. Consumers now have virtually all the information they need to make a purchase choice without any assistance from a "sales assistant". Before a significant purchase, consumers now review all sorts of web based resources that...