How to Calculate Your Mass Media Branding Budget
A great media buyer can make a smaller budget bark like a bigger one, but you still need to spend according to growth goals.
10 Most Common Mistakes in Marketing (Home Services Edition)
With so much conflicting information, how can you avoid royally screwing up your business? Start here.
5 Hard Truths About Advertising Every Business Owner Ought to Know
Your ads are an annoyance to your future customers. Unless you make yourself otherwise.
Shared Stories and Advertising Magic
Why do so few stories end up being about vulnerability, setbacks, or scars? Because it takes an uncommon level of guts and skill.
Personality Prescription, Part 5 – Let’s Sell Something
There’s a saying that “Business goes where it’s invited.” What should we put in our ads to get that invitation from Ms. Homeowner?
Wanna Be Seen as “The Best”? Don’t Brag, Do This Instead
Lead researcher, Neil G. MacLaren, set out to test the “Babble Hypothesis.” Turns out, there’s a deceptively simple answer.
Forget TL;DR — it’s TB;DC you gotta worry about!
The art of ad writing requires the creation of ads that work even for an audience that’s half-paying attention.
Screw You, I’m Going To Stand Out
How do you become the industry market leader if you say the same thing as every other business?
The Thing is Never the Thing
I would never criticize something I have no experience with… so I went ahead and bought an automated iHeart radio ad to advertise this article.
Fundamental Forces of Business – Part 2
This technique is used by many who think they understand advertising. It can turn a person into a customer, but only a weak one.
SUPERbowl vs SuperBORE
Professional sports now revolve around storylines. Business is about stories too. They glue us to the game and keep us wanting more.
Super Bowl Advertising vs. Your Advertising
Even guaranteed attention fizzles with a dud ad, while completely disinterested audiences can be won over with high-impact advertising.
Distinctiveness vs. Differentiation vs. Bonding
Branding aims at de-commodification: getting the customer to see you as the better, worthier option. And there are three ways of pursuing this goal.
The Biggest Waste in Advertising (a Case Study)
Advertising in the bigger community to draw customers to your smaller community is as futile as trying to make the water in a river defy gravity.
An interview with a small business that applied the Wrigley formula
He does not sell gum. He sells used RVs and he applied the lessons from Wrigley’s and is growing like crazy.