First up, a good reminder on a core question to ask frequently: In 1960, Harvard professor Theodore Levitt published a landmark paper in Harvard Business Review that urged executives to ask, “What business are you really in?” Even today, a half century later, his challenge still resonates. By pointing

Read More...

First up a great example and point made by The Ad Contraian: We all know that advertising is 50% strategy and 50% execution. It’s not true of great advertising — the kind people a thousand times better than us do. It’s great for all the wrong reasons — the

Read More...

Today I’ll share a tip on something we use just about every day. Have you ever been on a site and wondered how they did something? Or maybe you saw a sidebar widget that you thought looked cool? Here’s how we use 2 tools for collecting information about any website

Read More...

It has never been easier to educate and market with content, but with this ease comes a major challenge. We are told content is king; we are told to create content … that we should be writing, doing videos, podcasting, etc. I agree these are some of the most

Read More...

Google has been warning webmasters about guest blogging for quite a while, but now, the search engine is getting serious. Will going after “guest blogging networks” improve Google’s search results? Head of webspam Matt Cutts tweeted early Wednesday morning that Google has taken action on a large guest blog

Read More...

Recently I was working with some people and dividing up action items and tasks (or otherwise known as work). Then I remembered the 3 things I once learned that you should have in place to ensure satisfaction with the work you do. For any work or task to be

Read More...

Have you ever wondered why some people are successful at marketing online, while others struggle just to make things click? I’ve found there are three main things a successful online marketing plan has: A clear goal, a real plan, and market feedback. So let’s break each one of those

Read More...

Priming is a psychological term that essentially explains how an earlier stimulus influences response to a later stimulus. For instance, if I give you a list of words and I include the word ‘table’ and later ask you to complete a word starting with ‘tab’, the probability that you

Read More...

Okay, first I’ve been studying social media. Not formally and not in the triple blind and an army of PHD’s or lab rats kind of way. But rest assured I’ve been studying what it does to businesses and professionals. My study has concluded that it kills brain cells–and that’s

Read More...

“There doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day to get everything done.” I used to believe that until I started (about a month ago) doing a few simple things each and every day: At the end the day I wrote down what I accomplished At the start

Read More...

  Another round up of tools we use, discovered, or re-discovered. Discover Themes & Plugins on Websites First up is one that any person interested in digital marketing can use. Have you ever been on someone’s site, saw something maybe a interesting popup or sidebar item and wondered– how

Read More...

This post is for someone looking to sell a product or service with social media engagement. Yes I know social media is not for selling– but any professional or business who is spending time and money on earned media is expecting some form of ROI. When marketing for someone

Read More...

I wanted to share some great insight I learned while listening to Russ Roberts on the EconTalk podcast interview his long time friend Gary Belsky, Editor-in-Chief at ESPN The Magazine. Towards the end of the interview Gary mentions: I tell staff be more of who you are and what

Read More...

  How focused have you been today? First, before we go any further, do you have a really clear vision for what you want? Let’s say you have that covered. Then, so far today how many actions, thoughts and forward steps have you made on this vision? Seriously, take

Read More...

Attention is the scarcest commodity on the planet. When you get someone’s attention you are getting their most valuable resource–time. The answer to making sure you break through is positioning. Here are some stats I’ve seen out there that really drive home the point: 60,000 new book titles are

Read More...

Move Over GIF Here Comes GFY The ubiquitous GIF, a 27-year-old image format that has grown into an Internet artform, is becoming obsolete. There might just be a new format… meet GFY (some links are NSFW on the story). It will be interesting to see where it goes, I

Read More...