Viewing posts categorised under: Marketing Vision

Creative Commons License photo credit: Torley
You might read that title and wonder what in the world emotional connections have to do with online marketing or
any marketing for that matter.
Isn’t marketing simply about telling people what you have to offer and letting them know how to buy or work with you? Certainly it’s that, but much more. Whether you realize it or not, most decisions in life are fueled at least in part by emotion, and that goes for buying decisions large and small.
Our brains are equipped with both reasoning and emotional centers, and both factor into decision making. More often than not, people buy from emotion and justify with reason, so it’s important to know how to emotionally connect with them.
In online marketing, making emotional connections is especially important because the digital world can be fast, furious, and impersonal. There is a built-in immediacy in digital communication channels that often undermines or bypasses the opportunity to slow down the sale and deepen the consideration process that older, offline channels delivered. Plus, there’s a huge lack of trust (and fraud) in the digital world so allowing people to get to know you online goes a long way toward creating the confidence consumers and business people alike need before they're willing to buy.
So, is it easy to create emotional connections online? The good news is “YES!” thanks largely to social media and content publishing platforms that are faster, simpler and more accessible than ever before.
So, how do you do it? See more

photo credit: lukxde
One of my recent posts made
the case for opt-in over opt-out marketing. I realize that’s all well and good until it becomes time to convince people to say yes, right? So this month I want to share
four insights into what psychologically motivates people to say yes when given the opportunity to take action:
Invitation
It’s universally human that we would rather be asked than tricked or forced. Free will is one of the very cornerstones of human nature. When it’s all said and done, we’d rather be given the chance to make a conscious decision than cornered into unconscious choices we end up inevitably regretting.
So when it comes to asking someone to join your email or social media sphere, don't fall back on deception and coercion. You don’t need to sneak them in under the wire. Simply
invite them and trust that they can decide for themselves what is in their own best interests.
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photo credit: Berto Garcia
It’s no secret that in the United States at least, we’re obsessed with size. Perhaps stemming from our pioneering roots we equate bigger with better, have a preference for more vs. less (even if it’s far more than we need), and value limitless expanse. Whether it is due to this mentality or other reasons, a similarly pervasive way of thinking has been the mindset in direct marketing for decades.
Yet in an age of awareness about how unfettered human expansion has negatively impacted the environment, times are changing. Sustainability and austerity are in, conspicuous consumption is out. There’s a clear quality over quantity movement underfoot and already visible in social media. I for one say it’s high time this shift made its way fully into email marketing.
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photo credit: mmatins
Unless you were raised by wolves in the wild, at some point you've learned it is polite to say "Thank You". Not only is it proper etiquette, it's just downright considerate and gracious. Yet for marketers, saying thank you is about much more than just being polite. If you're in the business of building lasting, loyal customer relationships (and if you're not, please question why you're bothering to be in business at all) it's an essential practice that pays both monetary and good will dividends. Without it, you're both at greater risk of customer flight and a sitting duck for the competition.
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photo credit: D.H. Parks
A little over a year ago, I theorized that 2010 would be the
Year of Conscious Marketing. And while I do think it has taken us more than a year to become conscious of how to use the increasingly fragmented and multiplying online marketing avenues available to us, 2010 certainly was a year in which the “what-how-which” and “why” finally began to gel for many business owners and marketing professionals.
If 2009 was a watershed year – a year in which a lot of activity and change moved through at once – 2010 was what I called a
waterfall year – all that change and activity began to come together in a cohesive flow. Now, in 2011, it’s time to intentionally direct that flow to achieve our goals and desires.
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photo credit: Evelyn Proimos
Most marketers used to think blogs were strictly for writers, authors, and the opinionated. With the birth of the blog, millions who needed an outlet to vent, pontificate or simply self-publish finally had a platform to do so. Soon enough, it seemed like everyone and their brother had a blog.
At last count (according to Blog Pulse and this site) there are around 130 million blogs on the Internet. There are only about a million more websites (around 235 million total) than blogs online. So if it feels like you’re the only one without a blog, you’re not imagining things – blogs are breeding like rabbits.
But why blogs for business? And if you're an entrepreneur or marketer, why should you care?
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Figuring out whom to follow on Twitter can be time-consuming. With over 75 million Twitter accounts, how on earth do you figure out who you have anything in common with? It’s easy to feel overwhelmed before even getting started.
Twitter, however, is all about engagement, so it pays not to dilly-dally but instead, jump in and begin making those connections. Here’s a three-step process to instantly see who shares your interests so you can decide who to follow and get the conversations flowing!
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08 26, 2010 | Posted in Marketing Vision | 0 comments
Marketing isn’t about singular tactics, tools and channels anymore, each managed neatly in its own silo (as if it ever was). Don’t limit your perception of digital marketing to adding the latest Web 2.0 gadget to your site or playing in the newest online community. It’s not about figuring out the newest tactic or technology although there are plenty, ranging from YouTube to Twitter to video, blogs, Facebook and Second Life, and then going on to the next one on the list.
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08 23, 2010 | Posted in Marketing Vision | 0 comments
photo credit: kenner116
2009 was a “watershed” year, packed with transformation and shifting, all happening to clear out the old in order to make way for the new. In watershed years, a lot of activity and change which has been slowly building over previous periods finally moves through all at once.
And so it goes as the pace of change continues to accelerate in the world at large – more and more gets packed into the same seemingly-finite amount of time and space. Mentalities change faster, evolution happens at a heightened rate. You know where I’m going with this – it all impacts your marketing too. Not just how you market, but what you say and do. And it’s coming to a head in 2010, likely a waterfall year. Expect to see the flow of change speed up even more!
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