MasterCard recently revised their two-circle logo. I like it. The redesign goal for Michael Bierut and Luke Hayman of Pentagram — simplify simple. Strip the logo down to the bare essentials — basic, flat shapes, straight-forward, lower case, san serif fonts, and the iconic MasterCard colors. Bierut said, “Everything has changed in the past 20 years. There was a lot of screw tightening and design tinkering happening [with the logo] … Read More
- Branding
You’re Building Your Reputation Every Day Online
I spend time every day looking at data. Data informs me what is working. And that’s great. But data alone is useless without ideas. Without ideas, nothing’s there. The idea is what creates the attention which returns data, data that indicates whether the idea is working or not. There are three blogs that I read every day. One of those blogs is by author Bob Lefsetz. Bob is a longtime … Read More
The Journey of A Sale
“OH MY GOSH!!!!……… Out of the blue this guy is placing and sending a very expensive order to QFD today ….. he hasn’t seen our work, and hasn’t spoken to anyone here…..” That was the text message I received from Fred Sweisthal, one of my customers. So what made Fred’s new customer so ready to buy “out of the blue?” Well, it wasn’t so “out of the blue.” Fred’s customer … Read More
It’s In The Story
When asked to describe our product or service and why we are different from our competitors it’s easy to shift to sales mode and start by listing features and benefits. “We are innovative thinkers.” “We do marketing differently.” “Our team is superior.” “We care.” The best brands don’t lead with features and benefits; they engage by sharing the love they’ve put into their service or product. They create a show … Read More
Enter The Story
Tom whom I’ve never met, said, “Jeff, I like your website. I also enjoyed learning about you from your About page.” This type of interaction happens to me at least once a week. It’s the kind of interaction that begins a good conversation and starts building trust. The purpose of your story and every piece of marketing material is to move a person from awareness to discovery to trust. When … Read More
Your Adventure Starts Here
A local dry cleaner spends thousands of dollars each month just to get attention and be found. I see his advertisements online and in my junk mail often. Once I get to his website, there’s nothing there. There’s no story. Nothing that makes me feel he stands out. There is nothing that engages me. It’s just noise. So I tune out. Sure he spends the big bucks for the SEO, … Read More
Makes Us Feel Something
You are more likely to add bacon to your pizza if you order online. According to Shlomo Benartzi, a behavioral economist and author of The Smarter Screen: Surprising Ways to Influence and Improve Online Behavior” says, “When orders were placed online, bacon sales increased by 20 percent.” Why? Benartzi’s conclusion based on his study was we are less worried about what other people will think of our unhealthy order. In … Read More
Not Everybody’s Waiting
More than likely you are being ignored. Many have a fantasy that others care, but they don’t. Most are thinking of themselves and their problems, not you. Therefore, we try a lot of things to get their attention. Remember when everybody was going to blog? And then there were these marketing channels: MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, and the list goes on. Now according to GlobalWebIndex, social sharing … Read More
Killing the Sale
Today I received an email from a person I don’t know pretending to know me. They began with a small intro and then a hard pitch about their product and how it would help me. The email closed with an invitation to learn more. I just needed to reply or call now. The product might be good, but I didn’t look further. I deleted the email. My advice to the … Read More
I Shopped at Nordstrom
I shopped at Nordstrom this week. I went there to purchase a birthday gift for a friend. In my mind, my experience of shopping at Nordstrom over many years is pretty predictable. Pleasant. Refreshing. Easy. Quality product. Great service. My visit on this occasion, however, was less than memorable. There was the salesperson who was more concerned that she got the credit for my purchase over another salesperson. There was … Read More