Uncategorized

Is an MBA worth the tuition and opportunity costs for today’s marketer? While my mind battles this one out, I have found a great alternative to the traditional $55,000 dollar business school. I’ve enrolled in a free online MBA program called The Personal MBA, in which you read from a selection of books and then … Read more

In his book Marketing Warfare, Al Ries equates marketing to war. Marketers can’t just target their customers, they must attack their competition and be prepared to defend their turf from would be attackers at all times. The word strategy originally referred to military strategy. In ancient Athens, strategus was the highest ranking military commander and … Read more

Seth’s Godin writes a very entertaining blog on marketing called Seth’s Blog. It can be difficult to find information that you can actually use, but when you do, it’s well worth the effort. He’s also the author of some very interesting books like Purple Cow and Free Prize Inside, which I haven’t read yet but … Read more

With all the buzz swirling around the upcoming release of Da Vinci Code, it shows just how powerful a controversy can be. The reason: it chose to be remarkable. When you go against the grain and venture into waters not often traveled, you set yourself apart from the competition. It’s a classic example of Blue … Read more

Seth Godin’s latest installment All Marketers Are Liars suggests how marketers use storytelling to get consumers to believe in lies. Although we drive cars for transportation, that’s not why we buy them. People are willing to pay huge premiums for certain brands. Why do we do this? Partly it’s the marketer telling a story that … Read more

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing is a valuable read from the great minds of Al Ries and Jack Trout. It focuses on marketing strategy, especially branding. It is geared towards corporate strategy so the ideas are difficult to apply to smaller businesses, but it’s still very insightful marketing. The 5 Best Points…… 5. Find … Read more

Selling the Invisible written by Harry Beckwith is an excellent read about strategies for marketing of a service. The benefits of a service are not as apparent as the shiny paint job on a new Corvette. So as a result, services can be a harder sell. This book is a great how to on marketing … Read more

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t by Jim Collins, is the greatest book about being great. Whenever I’m listening to a podcast and they ask the interviewee what they are reading, they always say “Good to Great”. So I picked it up and it was very interesting. The author, … Read more

If you haven’t heard of it already, The Duct Tape Marketing Blog is a tremendous resource for small businesses. The content is practical and insightful and very to the point. He also creates great podcasts where he interviews some of the biggest names in marketing. Here’s the 3 Best Pointers from The Duct Tape Marketing … Read more

There is a great service for creating web surveys at www.surveymonkey.com. With blogger-like ease you can create web surveys and it’s free for ten questions and up to a hundred responses per survey! It also has a really great survey analysis program. You would have to pay if you want more than 100 people to … Read more