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Showing posts from November, 2016

How to Court the Younger Generation: Creating the Future of Your Business by Marketing to Millennials Today

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In the world of marketing, there's a natural instinct to go after certain segments of the population when marketing because those are the ones that spend the most money. That may be good for short-term gains, but any business worth its salt will always be thinking about the future. And regardless of the industry, the future can be summed up in one beautiful little word: millennials. Commonly defined as anyone between the ages of 18 and 34, or those born in 1982 and up, millennials outnumber baby boomers by roughly a half a million people. They're the largest generation in the country right now and, make no mistake, the one that the very future of your business will be based on. If you want to court the younger generation and create a solid future for your business, you'll need to keep a few key things in mind. Treat Them as Equals No consumers like to be talked down to or told what to do - but this is especially true with the younger generation. Millennials can

Sometimes Fresh Eyes Brings a Memorable Camel

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We often say that children look at the world through fresh eyes. Spending time with a child can give you a new perspective on life and how you view the world. While experience is an excellent teacher, fresh eyes can see the tried and true in a way that you may not have considered before. How can you adapt the fresh eyes concept into your business? Marketing is successful when it gets prospects and customers to sit up and take notice of your service, brand or product. Some of the best commercials are the ones that make us laugh, cry, or even cringe. The problem is that sometimes marketers rely too much on old ideas and the view of experienced sellers and managers instead of looking for fresh eyes on a campaign. A great marketing campaign gives the audience an emotional connection with the company. Emotions give advertising a memory hook; they get remembered. Hump Day Remember the "Hump Day" camel commercials that were on TV about a year ago? Do you remember who the

Warning: Are You Accidentally Shattering Your Brand Continuity?

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At its core, brand continuity is the idea that all communication channels between your brand and your customers (live chat, email, phone calls, etc.) should all look and feel like they're coming from the same place. It's the idea that you should strive to give your customers an experience that is as consistent as possible, regardless of how they choose to make contact with you. Successful brand continuity requires you to strike a delicate balance, and if you're not careful, there are a few ways that you can accidentally shatter all that you've worked so hard to build even before you realize you have a problem. It's All in the Visuals One of the more subtle ways to build and maintain brand continuity is also one of the most important, mainly because it can be the easiest to get wrong. You have to make sure that all of your branding from the version of your company logo to things as seemingly insignificant as the font you use are as consistent as possible, reg

A Business Perspective on Apple's Latest MacBook Event

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If you're interested in the tech world at all, you're no doubt aware that Apple recently announced the 2016 MacBook Pro - something the company is calling "the best laptop ever made." Indeed, it's a unit with a technical specification sheet that can't help but impress. Objectively, it likely will go down in history as the best laptop the company has released to date. However, some users are suggesting that Apple may be losing the balance between "user experience" and "marketing" in a way that is a bit unfavorable to their end goals. The 2016 MacBook Pro The new MacBooks don't have a standard USB port at all, getting rid of them in favor of the new (and admittedly superior) USB-C. This is a great step towards a much more productive future, but it's at the expense of the fact that we're not quite at that future just yet. Case in point: the new iPhone 7 does not have a USB-C port at all. Instead, it uses Apple's proprie

Moving On Is Not Giving Up

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No business professional in history has ever had a perfect record. Though you only set goals for you and your team with the absolute best of intentions, sometimes you may find yourself coming up short. Everyone from our parents to our teachers to our mentors has told us over and over again to "never give up, never surrender," when sometimes, you have to do exactly that. The key to coming out all the better for it involves knowing how to identify that moment of surrender when it does arrive, and how to best handle what comes immediately after. Look for the Signs The best way to know when to move on from an objective in the world of business involves taking a moment to observe the world around you. How much time have you spent trying to accomplish this task? How much money have you expended trying to do this one particular thing? Would that time, money, and energy be better served if it were reallocated elsewhere within your organization? At a certain point, you wil