The ethical underpinning of strategy & marketing is being eroded.
Marketing is about adding value, finding innovative ways to solve problems. Sometimes marketers set out to 'solve' problems that around the BBQ would be termed a '1st world' problem. 'Which dog manicurist' rates in my mind as such a problem, the...
The ‘Benjamin Button’ effect of digital
In the film, Benjamin Button does not age, as those around him do, but he does accumulate the memories and knowledge around him as time passes. Pretty cool, unless the love of your life is stuck in the present, whatever that is. For years we have...
When is the best time to sell?
Clearly the best time to sell is when the customer is ready to buy. The challenge is that you have to know your customers well to be able to create some sort of relationship that evolves as they become more ready to buy, they are looking for some...
Pharmacists: Amazon is coming for you!
My mother lives by herself in a large regional city in NSW. At 90 she is pretty remarkable, although some of the bits are wearing out, so she has a pharmacological regime that would make your average teenage party-goer green with envy. Her pills...
10 considerations to make better pricing decisions
Setting the price is always challenging, the decision often left to the last thing. Wrong. Your pricing strategy should be a part of your overall strategy as decisions in other places have a huge impact on the best way to maximise your return from your...
Uncovering the Strategic Vs Financial value of your business.
The valuations put on businesses are typically a calculation based on future earnings, a financial calculation that has always been the basis of company valuations. We understand it well. Take current earnings and multiply them by a multiple that...
Is a continuing investment in content valuable?
In early 2014 Mark Schaefer posted a piece titled 'Content shock: Why content marketing is not a sustainable strategy' on his website. To me, it is one of the few pieces of truly intelligent strategic thinking I have seen on the topic of...
What ‘digital transformation’ is not!
It happened again over the weekend. I had a conversation with a bloke who runs a medium sized business, and is embarking on what he called a 'digital transformation'. In other words, he is paying someone to build a website. Another example of...
11 hard lessons from 40 years of building and implementing successful marketing plans
The key word in that headline is 'Implementing'. A plan is of little value unless it is implemented, the lessons from the success and failures of that implementation incorporated into the next iteration. This is not another post about the 55 things...
Is the content bandwagon terminally broken?
Back in 2014 Mark Schaefer wrote a prescient post he called 'Content Shock', in which he put the position that content marketing as it was then being practised was not a sustainable strategy. Nearly 5 years ago, this was akin to heresy. However, just like...