In 1995, Newsweek ran an article claiming that all the hubbub about the Internet was overblown. It’s online communities couldn’t possibly replicate the benefits of face-to-face interactions, so “this trendy and oversold community” would never last. The author claimed online stores were overblown and that “my local mall does more [...]
“Know your audience” is a classic adage of sales and marketing. It’s key to crafting persuasive sales pitches and relevant content. The better you understand who you’re talking to, the better you can appeal to their interests, aspirations, and struggles. But what happens if you don’t know your audience? Maybe [...]
Let’s say you just poured a ton of effort into an ad campaign. You selected a relevant audience. You chose the right lead magnet. And as a result, you got thousands of people to sign up for your email list. But then you sent a series of sales emails and [...]
It’s notoriously difficult to measure the full value of print ads. It’s simply impossible to track every conversion or to measure the impact of exposing your audience to your brand. But that doesn’t mean print ads aren’t valuable. In fact, they play a vital role in branding, and psychology teaches [...]
Nearly a century ago, a team of psychologists led by Edward Thorndike discovered that when military officers evaluated soldiers on a variety of qualities, one rating would always affect the others. If a soldier was rated high for their physical appearance, they were also perceived as smarter, better leaders, and [...]
When your lead-generation campaign underperforms or doesn’t scale well, it’s easy to blame your assets. Your ad used the wrong button text or button color. Or your image should’ve had people in it (or not had people in it). Or the copy was unclear. Those could all certainly be factors. [...]
When every marketing decision comes back to your bottom line, it’s easy to focus on the things that create the biggest immediate results. That’s why so many email lists, blogs, and social media pages wind up being just a series of sales pitches. It might also be why your audience [...]
As an advertiser, you want your audience to see your ads and think, “Hey, this is for me!” You want to speak to their aspirations and problems so clearly that they feel like you understand them and your product or service can really help them. You want them to see [...]
Next to Google, YouTube is the most popular website in the world. Incidentally, that also makes it the second most popular search engine. And it’s also a social network. From a marketing standpoint, YouTube is an incredibly unique platform. It’s a place where brands can build a following by regularly [...]
When you create an advertising campaign, it’s easy to focus on the parts that generate leads: the ad itself, your landing page, forms, etc. But creating leads is only half the battle. If you want your leads to actually convert and move down your marketing funnel or sales pipeline, you [...]