Ten Simple Ideas to Deal With The Reality That Most Marketing Work Is Boring as Hell | marketingforhippies.com

January 25, 2017 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Here’s the truth: most of marketing your business is boring.

It’s the tedious making lists of people to contact.

It’s pre-writing emails.

It’s scheduling things out and making plans.

It’s rewriting headlines. It’s editing eBooks (dear God… the editing).

It’s doing all of those things when, frankly, you’d rather be having beers with friends or watching Netflix – House of Cards, amiright?).

99% of the work of marketing is not clicking send on the email or publishing the sales page. I think it’s why so many people do so poorly. It’s boring. It’s avoidable and, so, it is avoided.

What can be done about this?

4 Ways Market Research Professionals Can Improve Your Business | Cool Business Ideas

December 19, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Your company might have started experiencing a decline in sales despite being the market leader for the past two decades. If you don’t understand why this is happening, it’s time to employ the market research professionals. It could be that the new generation simply isn’t aware of your brand, or they might think your website performs too slowly compared to your competitors. Perhaps they believe the competition conveys more professionalism than your company, or maybe your products are a little outdated. Regardless of the problem, market research can find the solution to help you get back on track and secure the sales you need.

According to Communications for Research, “the most successful businesses in the world are those that anticipate changes in their marketplace, and make proactive adjustments that put them in the right position, at the right time, with the right products, programs and pricing.” Embracing change is crucial if you want to stay on top, and the only way to find out how you should adapt is by researching the market thoroughly. Here’s how market research can help you:

Marketing Feels Bad Because We’re Ashamed Not Because It’s Shameful | marketingforhippies.com

December 8, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The other day, I was wondering about why there was such an appeal to marketing courses that taught secrets of unconscious persuasion, stealth tactics, invisible influence, secret closes, ninja strategies etc.

The implication of all of these approaches was that no one would notice what you were doing. No one would notice that you were steering them towards buying from you. They would just, unexplainably, feel compelled to trust and buy from you. They’d just leave the conversation with your product proudly in their hand thinking that they had made the decision when, in fact, it was all you and the secret arsenal of tactics you’d deployed throughout the conversation.

The 20 Most Viral Ads of 2016 | Adweek

December 5, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Christmas, the Olympics/Paralympics and OK Go.

Those are three reliable buckets for great advertising, and they all show up in Unruly’s new list of the most shared ads of 2016. The top spot on this year’s list goes to a Christmas spot; No. 2 was made for the Paralympics; and OK Go put two videos on the list, including one at No. 5.

Ads from 10 different countries appearing on this list, Unruly says—the U.K., U.S., Denmark, Egypt, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Norway, the Philippines and Indonesia. The average runtime for the top 20 videos is 2:49

The Advantages Of Bus Stop Advertising | The Startup Magazine

December 2, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

When we’re trying to get the most out of our promotional budgets, we love to find a format that delivers effective low-cost advertising. But we love getting to play with the latest and greatest ad technology, too. Although many people overlook it today, the bus stop advert actually offers a great compromise between these two desirable values.

Here are a few of the reasons bus stop ads are well worth consideration for any brand that’s looking to increase its exposure.

Bus shelter advertising is highly scalable. The format delivers a low cost of entry that is friendly to local groups and small businesses, but the sheer breadth of exposure makes these ads attractive to large brands as well.

Guest Post: How to Teach a Class to Get New Clients . . . Based on the Cycles of Nature | marketingforhippies.com

November 22, 2016November 22, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Today I’m going to teach you a very practical marketing skill that I love and use regularly in my own business: teaching a free or low-cost intro class that gives people a taste of you and your offering so they can’t wait to work with you.

And get ready – it’s a long post, but it will walk you through all the steps you need to design a really rocking class.

If you have something interesting to teach and you enjoy teaching (or you’re willing to push yourself a bit and put your gifts out there, nudge-nudge), this is one of the easiest ways to get new clients.

What’s unique about what I’ll show you here is that it’s a nature-based model for teaching and learning. It will give you the confidence to deliver an effective class, and have your students feel deeply held in a strong, interactive, inspiring container… that feels totally natural, and not awkward.

5 Tips To Help You Create Highly Effective Facebook Ad Campaigns | The Startup Magazine

November 16, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Although nearly all social networking platforms now have their own completely integrated advertising systems, when it comes to audience, insights and features, Facebook is still the premier platform. For businesses, that means that Facebook is the best place to get started. However, unfortunately, Facebook might be an excellent advertising platform, but that doesn’t mean it is used effectively by all brands. Many of them ending up wasting resources and money, because they don’t understand how to properly use it or don’t have an effective strategy. Hopefully, you are not one of them. All it takes to be successful is some knowledge of the way that Facebook advertising works along with some best practices.

The follow are my five best tips for creating highly effective Facebook ad campaigns:

How to Build a Strong Community | Duct Tape Marketing

November 9, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

This past month I was able to experience community in its most potent sense on two separate occasions, and I came away with an important insight about building community.

Marketers today realize that a vibrant, engaged, loyal community is perhaps the greatest asset a brand can possess and often leads to an extremely profitable enterprise – whether that’s the intent of the organization or not.

The challenge is that the kind of community described above doesn’t appear through some magic marketing trick – building a strong community around your brand is difficult, elusive, and fragile.

Be More Repulsive | marketingforhippies.com

November 9, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

A simple, counter-intuitive idea for you today.

You’ve likely been told the importance of niche in marketing. Likely you’ve heard this from myself. You’ve likely heard about the importance of honing in on who you want to reach, to identify your ideal client, chosen audience or target market and maybe even to create a client avatar.

And those are all fine ideas.

But I want to suggest something you might not have considered doing before. And, until the other day, I hadn’t either.

One of the central roles of marketing is to not just get the attention of your ideal clients but also to make sure you filter out the clients for whom your work will not be a fit in the same way that a window screen allows fresh air in but keeps out the flies.