Archive for Message

Overcome the Curse of Knowledge to Tell Your Story More Powerfully

In their best-selling book, Made to Stick, Heath brothers Chip and Dan share the results of a 1990 experiment performed by Elizabeth Newton at Stanford University.
Ms. Newton devised a simple game in which she assigned people to one of two roles: “tappers” and “listeners.”
Tappers received a list of 25 well-known songs and were asked to [...]

Are You Leveraging the Power of Verbs In Your Marketing?

In 1974, psychologists Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer showed test subjects seven 5-30 second video clips of car accidents. Every subject saw the same clips.
After viewing the videos, the subjects were given questions about the accidents and were asked to write down their answers.
The twist was that they were given different questions.
The critical questions were:

[...]

Joe Dirt’s Words of Wisdom for Marketers

In this brief clip, the erudite and articulate Joe Dirt shares the single most important lesson for business owners and marketers:

*If you’re reading this in an RSS reader or email, you may need to click the title of the post to view the video.

Hub Mentality for Commodities Versus Educational Sales

In our last newsletter we spoke of how marketing is much more than a message; it’s a process.
Traditional ad agencies can write you ads, but you need a marketing infrastructure (hub) to support those ads.
If you’re selling a commodity with immediately-recognizable relevance (shoes, insurance, mortgages, food), short, impactful messages are critical.
Traditional advertising can still [...]

Ad Writing Lesson #1

Last week I started a 7-week ad writing course at Wizard Academy with Roy H. Williams of The Wizard of Ads trilogy fame.
Here’s our class picture, with me in the nappy red beard in the back:

I’ve been attending Wizard Academy courses for a couple years now, and this is the best one by far.
Lesson #1: [...]

They Won’t Buy If They Don’t Understand Your Story

Human beings by the masses only value what is popular and mainstream.  If they don’t understand your story, they won’t buy. This is essence of marketing and sales.
Value is truly in the eyes of the beholder. 
What is your most valuable possession? Would others value that possession as much as you do? How much would you pay [...]

Is Social Media a Fad?

Check out this astounding video. If you’re reading this in an RSS reader, you may need to click on the post title to view the video.

ChangeThis Publishes Hub Mentality

Check out this new version of Hub Mentality from ChangeThis.
ChangeThis started as Seth Godin’s idea and is now operated by 800-CEO-Read.
In an effort to spark “thoughtful, rational, constructive” discussion on important topics and with the goal of transforming media delivery and consumption, ChangeThis solicits and publishes “manifestos” from thought leaders in all fields.
As they explain [...]

Marketing Messages That Won’t Travel

Whether larger business or small, the message your business shares through your marketing and interaction with your clients and prospects must be simple, repeatable, and viral.
Have you met with someone who explains what they do and then you don’t have a clue how to tell anyone else about it?  I had that experience years ago [...]