Your perfect prospect persona? We killed him.

Marketers work hard to create a persona to picture their ideal future customer. We bumped him off. sorrynotsorry Sales-oriented strategists define age/gender/income/psychic traits and habits based on research, intuition and alchemy. They even give him a name, or give her hobbies, then pin pictures to a mood board showing Perfect Prospect’s clothing, shopping choices and haircut. For 30 years it’s …

Marketing automation reveals the ROI of every tactic.

Slang from the ’90s sounds silly. Clothes we wore a generation ago look ridiculous. Same-sex weddings don’t even raise an eyebrow today. Change is constant. Change is everywhere. Darwin taught us that adaptation is the key to survival. Charlie D. focused on species – but we see this kind of evolution happen in languages, social attitudes, fashions – and marketing. …

Envelopes = Death

We have been advising clients for many years not to put brochures into envelopes – a large and growing percentage of which get thrown away unopened. Frankly, we tell most clients not to put anything into snail mail at all, but that’s not an absolute rule. Dimensionals, for example, are often opened first. I just retrieved an envelope from the …

The research gold mine of online display

There are two flavors of online marketing: search and display. Are you a brand owner who embraces search but ignores display? Your I-don’t-click-on-display-ads-so-nobody-does theory needs a rethink. You’re missing out on a feedback loop of information about the demographics and psychographics of your best prospects. Place ads on different networks, put visual stimulus in front of various segments, get actionable …