What Has Changed About Marketing?

Customer service > Advertising

Word-of-Mouth > Promotion

Engagement > Awareness

Permission > Interruption

Relevancy > Frequency

Actions > Impressions

Niche > Mass

Start marketing smarter.

Realize: How Not To Market a University

Lately I’ve noticed several different University of Regina billboards around Regina. Now if you immediately jump to “but Jeph you saw them and remembered them.  Isn’t that a great billboard?!?” Hardly. Not all exposure is good exposure.  Do you think BP’s oil spill was “good” exposure for the company?


Continue Reading

The Smartest Marketing Book Ever Written

Brandwashed BookThe book Brandwashed is the smartest marketing book ever written because of the vast research Martin Lindstrom does on the topic.  His first book [Buy-ology] was groundbreaking for what it uncovered about the sacred topic of marketing.  I really think everyone should read it.  Take the quiz to see if you’ve been Brandwashed.  I’ve listed some highlights from the book to show you how much you’ll learn.


Continue Reading

We Don’t Have an Awareness Problem, We Have a Marketing Problem

Old school radioA client of mine had a radio sales person stop by the other day, she was polite, left her card and said she’d follow up with an e-mail.  My client has already told her he does not want to use radio.  The following day he receives an e-mail/sales pitch on why radio is the best medium to spread his message to the masses.  Radio?  Really?  REALLY?

This is frustrating for my client because he doesn’t have an awareness problem, he has a marketing problem.  The sales person has never thought to ask “what is the goal of your marketing?”, a simple question that would have helped her immensely at understanding how to make the sale.


Continue Reading

What do Keg Party’s and Great Products Have in Common?

Keg PartyYou want to share the experience.

When you hear someone is having a keg party the host of it does not have to try to get you to come. She doesn’t have to sell you on the party, she doesn’t have to advertise to get people to come. The keg sells the party.  No one wants to miss a Keg party.

Great products are much like keg parties–you want to tell others about them. They are not your regular products; they are different in some special way. Clever advertising doesn’t need to be used to sell them.  A large part of your budget doesn’t need to go towards “branding”.


Continue Reading

Where is Marketing Going?

In the first of many videos, I explain my thoughts on where Marketing is going.  It’s pretty logical if you think about it.  As the world gets more and more cluttered with advertising it makes more and more sense to go online and search for what you want.  What did you think?  Agree? Disagree?  Let me know in the comments.  If this made you mad, wait till I do the video on why I think Advertising’s dead!

Thanks to Riley from Living Sky Media for helping me with this.