Social media’s ever-increasing presence in our lives is a clear reminder of just how badly we humans want to connect with each other. Unfortunately, too many companies completely ignore that reality when they try to communicate with customers and prospects. Doesn’t matter whether they’re using an Insta video, an email newsletter, a website, or an … Read more
Many people have a strong aversion to repetition. It isn’t that they can’t tolerate others repeating a message; it’s that they don’t want to risk echoing their previous efforts when developing their marketing communications materials. The concern about repetition crops up most often in planning for ongoing marketing programs, such as social media or customer … Read more
You have access to tens of thousands of fonts. But you probably shouldn’t use more than a couple of them. Why? Once, businesspeople communicated primarily using devices called typewriters. Most typewriters offered just one font, and the most popular model in offices, the IBM Selectric, used a font we know as Courier. Somehow, everyone managed … Read more
You’re well aware of the internal structure of your company, and the politics and complex challenges that spring from that structure. When a customer needs something, you mentally consider which departments will be involved and what it will take to make it happen. Your customers view you differently. They see you as a single entity. … Read more
It seems many marketing decision-makers received part of their education from the old “Dragnet” TV show. If you’re too young to remember the program (or the comedic movie remake), “Dragnet” featured Sgt. Joe Friday, a Los Angeles detective who said very little and spoke in a near-monotone. Unlike today’s “Law & Order” or “NCIS” detectives, … Read more
The first of my many exposures to the brilliance of Hoosier author Kurt Vonnegut was his 1952 short story “EPICAC,” in which the narrator prevails upon the world’s most powerful computer to draft a poetic marriage proposal for his lovely colleague. EPICAC’s series of poems fulfill the romantic objective, but there’s a hitch. The computer … Read more
If you’re shooting a video and want comments from company officials, customers, and other stakeholders to sound completely natural, make sure you script them before they say a word. Think it’s counterintuitive that the best way to make the people in your videos sound unrehearsed is to put words in their mouths and have them … Read more
When confronted with a portfolio of samples from a writer, designer, or web wizard, intelligent businesspeople typically become less than savvy. Losing sight of the fact that they’re about to make a critical business decision, they scan the contents, nod their approval, then point to an example or two and say, “I really like this … Read more
Famous television doctor Mehmet Oz invested millions into an unsuccessful effort to capture one of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seats, and I’m pretty confident a single word had plenty to do with his defeat. While trying to prove he was just a regular guy by stopping in a supermarket to grab items for dinner, the celebrity … Read more
I’m not sure that a welcome mat in front of a business ever made anyone feel truly welcome, or a notation on a receipt saying that it has been someone’s pleasure to serve you made up for the indifferent treatment delivered by the server who dropped it on the table. Businesses put a lot of … Read more